Intermec PB51 Printer

Servicing
Linux printing (CUPS)

This is a portable direct thermal printer designed to be carried on a belt or strap. It has a proprietary battery, or runs off 12V@4.15A. It has serial, USB, bluetooth, and WiFi interfaces (I only have experience with USB so far).

I bought it because:

I used to use Intermec handheld computers professionally, and found them good
compact size
relatively cheap used
supports feed-through for 4" fan-fold labels
protocol support seemed good (IPL, Fingerprint, ZPLII, ESC-II, DSim)

Servicing

When I got it, the printer had some issues staying on (probably due to short barrel jack on my AC adapter), and the door sensor was often reporting open when closed.

A disassembly and clean resolved the problems. For normal maintenance (no disassembly) the manual has a good diagram and description of the cleaning process and considerations.

The printer has a fairly complex assembly. Tools needed were a torx T8, torx T10, small phillips, and medium phillips driver.

I followed this video guide for the PB50, but there's a shorter one for the PB51 that might be better. As far as I can tell they're largely the same except the PB50 has conveniences like a label/backing separator, and label taken sensor that make it more suitable for label use.

A small brush, and some alcohol swabs are useful for cleaning.

(Dis)assembly requires some care and attention to detail. There are a lot of steps (>100), and cables to manage so they aren't pinched or torn.

Linux printing (CUPS)

Intermec/Honeywell provides a CUPS driver. It looks like a standard BSD-3-Clause license.

Links don't seems stable, but I might have caught them in transition as a number of search result links redirected me to a knowledgebase search. Anyway here's where I got a fairly recent (v1.6, July 2023) driver from: Intermec CUPS Driver for Linux (click on FILES near the top).

Seems to consist of a bitmap converter executable (pbmtodp), a CUPS filter shell script (intermec-dp-drv), and PPD definitions for supported printers. The INSTALL file is concise.

CUPS Configuraiton

I selected the USB device, Intermec for Make, and PB50 for the Driver.

For Default Options I set (for use with UPS fan-fold labels):

General

Media Size
4.00x6.00"

Print Method
No Ribbon (DT)
Media Settings

Media Type
Media With Gaps
Print Quality

Media Sensitivity
Very Low

Darkness
95
Policies

Error Policy
abort-job

I'm not sure the Print Quality settings had an effect. My labels were coming out very light, while my first test print with the receipt paper roll had looked fine. I didn't get good results with the UPS labels until I modified the LABEL CONTRAST and LABEL FACTOR using the printer's built-in interface.

This resulted in a semi-usable setup. The print margins are incorrect, but for now I'm working around it by setting an extra margin in my print dialog. This superuser question seems to deal with modifying the CUPS PPD to take that into account. I'll probably clone the existing 4x6" setting and adjust it to suit later. TODO

Printer Settings

The printer manual shows two setup menus, one for IPL, and one for Fingerprint. Mine seems to be using Fingerprint, and I didn't have a need to look into IPL yet.

In there I set:

Setup
- Media
  - Media Type
    - Label (w Gaps)
  - Paper Type
    - Direct Thermal
      
      Label Contrast
      90
      
      Label Factor
      45

The display orientation can be flipped around, but I found the menus a pain to interact with in that state since the buttons don't correspond to the screen icon position anymore.

Physical setup (TODO)

The printer is designed to sit upright. Labels feed from the back (or an internal roll) out the front. For the smallest footprint I intend to build a small stand that lets a stack of fanfold labels sit below it. This should let the printer occupy a footprint about 6.5" (17cm) square.

I might use the little locating peg holes on the bottom of the printer. It also might need some bracing in the back so it can't pull itself over if the labels become stuck.

ASCII drawing of printer stand (P for printer, L for label stack)

Front Face    Side Profile

  PPPPP           PPP
  PPPPP         __PPP
  PPPPP        ╱  PPP
 ╔═════╗       ╲ ┌───┐
 ║ LLL ║        L│   │L

The printer is also a good candidate for googly eyes. I didn't have any, but this thing is a label printer so it got a pair of static eyes instead:

Oh dear

NOM NOM