So I was studying the latest TZe p-touch unit that I bought, the PT-D210 and I noticed something interesting. Near the printhead, there's a bunch of pins that read pinholes on the side of the cartridge.
The old TZ cartridges had a set of pinholes on the bottom of the cartridge in the corner. TZe cartridges have those holes as well, for backward compatibility in older TZ machines. TZe cartridges add their own set of bottom holes in the middle of the cartridge.
But I never noticed that there's pins that go to holes in the side.
When the lever is pushed down by closing the cover, the pins are pushed out by the mechanism so they will go into the tape cartridge.
Here's the PT-D210 print head:
and a closeup of the pins:
Here's a 12mm (1/2) inch TZe cartridge: (Note the pins on the corner for TZ, pins in the middle for TZe)
and the side of the 12mm TZe cartridge:
comparing a TZe to a TZ cartridge, you can see that the TZ cartridge side is featureless, having a totally smooth side:
and if I flip the picture of the TZe cart horizontally and scale to match, you can see how it matches up with the pins and the white plastic tab:
The printhead mechanism of the PT-P700 has these pins too, but more of them (probably because it will print a full 24mm tape)
Remember that TZe carts will work in older TZ machines but TZ carts won't work in new TZe machines.
I always thought it was a bit silly to create a new standard for the tapes, as the newer TZe machines aren't able to use the collection of TZ tapes that I have.
"Silly" is not the word I would choose. Prior to purchase I thought the tape types were compatible. Now I have a new machine $100+ of perfectly good tapes that don't work simply because they don't have the right holes in them. If you had pictures of the various TZe sizes and their hole receptacles, I could probably salvage my old tapes. I guess I'll buy a variety and figure it out.
ReplyDeleteOr you could get an older machine that uses the TZ tapes. I think cartridge surgery by drilling holes would be too hard. Maybe you could transplant the spools from inside an old cartridge to the newer style (that would be hard too.)
ReplyDeleteI really hate the incompatibility introduced with the TZe for so little benefit.
The benefit is to the Brother, not to you. Brother doesn't want to pay higher cost to produce TZ tapes which use more plastic (bad for Brother) but are more strong and reliable (good for you). If Brother had allowed older tapes to be used in new labelers, than the gentleman above "otterthay" would use his old stock, instead of throwing his money on new less meaty cartridges.
ReplyDeleteDon't drill holes. Open the labeler and swap the pins for microswitches. U can use the dip switches you can buy from surplus electronic store or just desolder somewhere. Or just regular switches. If you can't solder, then you can just relocate the pins and tape some of them down as required.
If you don't want to go inside of a labeler, then you need to learn how to relocate the tape from TZ to TZe cartridges. It is extremely hard for the first time. But once you suffer enough (thank to Brother), you'll learn how to do it relatively quickly (10 minutes per cartridge) that way you can just keep loading the TZ tape into TZe cartridge.
ReplyDelete