Update Tulip Device Library Printers Page

Hey Beth and @jmlowden ! Happy to help - some good news/bad news here. Timely, though, as we’re just going through a revamp of our Zebra printer documentation ourselves.

In short, the method that you use to integrate with a Zebra printer will always be determined by the port on the Zebra printer that you’re using. I’ve confirmed this with some of Zebra’s newer models (the 410, to be precise) so I expect this to persist across other models.

If the port you are plugging into on the Zebra printer is:

  1. A DB9 port, you’ll be communicating via Serial/RS-232. Use either the Serial (Player Only) driver (which I’ve detailed here) for Player, or either the Generic Serial driver or Node-RED with any Edge Device.

  2. An RJ45 port, you’ll be communicating by TCP. Use either the Zebra Network Printer or Telnet drivers for Player (fair warning, I haven’t tried the latter yet), or the Zebra Printer driver for Edge Devices. (or, perhaps Node-RED as well)

  3. A USB port, in which I hope you the best - I have yet to get comms to work over this port. I think there might be a way to reconfigure the device as COM-over-USB with their software, but have yet to crack it.

All in all, what this means is make sure you know what ports are on your printer! There are different configurations, so for ex not al GK420s are the same!
(Side note, the newer ZD400’s mostly don’t have DB9’s, but they do sell an adapter kit)

let me know if this helps!

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