Dymo Rhinopro 6000 Label Printer (1734519)

• LABELING TOOL

Best Rhinopro if you can afford it:
The 6000 is the latest in the line of Rhinopro label printers. While this is the most expensive, it seems to answer all of the criticisms I have seen of the earlier versions, and is an incredibly versatile machine. The printer takes tapes from 1/4 inch to a full 1 inch wide. It is not clear from the literature, but a call to Dymo confirmed that the 6000 takes the D1 tapes as well as the specialized Rhino tapes, so there is a wide range of sizes and colors available, and you can use tapes you might already own for one of the other Dymo printers. Earlier models were criticized for the way the rubber cover made tape changing difficult. On this model, the rubber is built in, and tape changing is as simple as opening a flap at the bottom. Another plus is that the tape width is now entered on the keyboard when a tape is changed, and not with a switch in the tape compartment. The label printer is easy to use as a standalone device, but can also be driven from a PC. As a Mac user, I haven't yet been able to try this. There is currently no Mac version of the software. Operation through the keyboard is relatively straightforward, given the number of different options that are available, and is made easier by the dedicated function keys that allow you to select the type of label you want to produce. I bought the unit primarily so that I could label light switches at our new home, and to label the myriad of cables and power bricks that come with every new piece of electronics these days. The flexible nylon tape and the multiple wire labeling formats (including the "flag" format that automatically prints the text twice on the label with a gap between so you can wrap the unprinted center part around the cable and have the printed sections stuck back to back to themselves as a flag) make the latter job very easy. Build quality seems reasonable for the price, and the print quality even on the 1" tape is excellent. The unit comes with a great range of graphic symbols that would be of use to industrial users, as well as lots of symbols that are great for home. You can download the manual at the dymo site (http://download.dymo.com/media/UserGuides/R6000_UserGuide.pdf) and see them all. Storing labels in the internal memory isn't as intuitive as I would have liked, but it is a minor niggle. More than offset by the attention to user friendliness that is shown by the fact that although there is a lithium rechargeable battery pack that fits in the unit, they have designed the battery compartment to also take AA batteries in an emergency, which means that you'll never get stranded with a flat battery, and won't necessarily need to be held hostage to buy a new lithium pack from Dymo when the original one fails! When I ordered mine, Amazon didn't have them, so I got mine from Labelcity.com and was very very pleased with their service and knowledge. They stock pretty much all of the tapes, and their price is very competitive.

Better than P-Touch, but no panacea:
Having fought with nearly every model of P-Touch labeler over the years - mostly for cable labeling, which it's simply not designed for - I broke down and bought the Rhino 6000 last week, thinking I was going pro. As the previous reviewer mentions, it solves a lot of the design flaws of the previous top-of-the-line Rhino model. However, I'm still finding it incredibly annoying for the following reasons: * The built-in symbol library is tiny and a pain to access (multi-level menus for every single symbol). Ditto for the text library. * There's allegedly a way to create your own symbols using Rhino Connect software, but that software is nowhere to be found on Rhino's web site. The product page for that software is an expired coupon from 2007 for a free CD ($199 value!); that sounds, to me, like they didn't have the software ready yet and wanted to market it anyway. Presumably, if it existed, they'd be selling it by now. * The "wrap" modes, which should be great for cables, leave a wide margin at the edge of the label, so you don't really get the wrap effect on thinner cables (e.g. 18 AWG). * The print quality is spotty; sometimes the label looks good, sometimes there are pixels missing. This is with several different types of label cartridges (heat shrink, flexible nylon.) * Hitting a wrong key at any point results in the whole LED display momentarily flashing at you. * The UI is clunky; there are separate keys for "CLR", "ESC", "OK", "backspace", and "enter", and each of them is used in different ways at different points to select menu items. * No auto-detection of cartridge size. Even my P-Touch has this. * Cut labels don't fall out of the machine; you have to wave it around or lightly tap it upside-down to shake them out. * The backing is very difficult to peel, at least on the 1/2-inch nylon labels, because it's cut in half lengthwise along the entire label. Brother's P-Touch models will do a "half cut" - they'll cut the label at the edge, and then cut only the backing a little ways in, so that you can peel off most of the backing in one step. * You can't mix type styles or sizes within a label. So I can't, for instance, label my terminals as (1) (2) (3) (with boxes around the numbers), and then create a label showing "24 VAC -> (1)"; either the whole label is boxed, or nothing at all. * You can't change fonts, period. One font. * The color selection is very limited compared to P-Touch. * You can't print on the back of the heat-shrink tubing. I guess I can't expect this from a handheld; it'd take twice the printing machinery. Still, it's something I hadn't thought about before, and I'm sure I've seen heat-shring labels with true wrap-around capability, so somebody somewhere does it. Otherwise, again, "wraparound" on a thin wire isn't very wraparound. Most importantly: * The thing can't auto-cut! Again, my (relatively) cheapo P-touch has been able to do that for six years. There is a cut button, but you can't tell the machine to cut after each printing. At best, you can tell it to pause printing between labels, so YOU can press the cut button. Clearly, they know we want to auto-cut, but the auto-pause was the best they were able to do for some reason... Given that, I don't see any reason to buy this over a nicer P-Touch model. As for me, I'm going to think about splurging on a Brady - although it seems that they can't auto-cut either. WTF?

Amazingly Inadequate:
We have used Brother P-Touch labels for years for custom calibration labels for our clients and products that we make. When Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) finally broke P-Touch Editor, I thought it would be worthwhile to evaluate a portable printer and picked the Rhinopro 6000 because it advertises the capability to develop labels on a computer. The printer was delivered without the software. Somehow I missed this fine distinction in the description. As is, the function of the 6000 is rudimentary at best. It seems to be primarily designed to print sequences of information equally spaced on a label, perhaps for labeling switches or circuit breakers. This works quite well if you have no ambition to format your labels, or use a variety of fonts. The cutter on the unit we got will not cut a straight line, nor are the cuts perpendicular to the edges of the label. This means you will have to use scissors if you want your labels to look clean and professional. I sent off the required documentation for the otherwise $200 software package and three weeks later the CD arrived. Expecting a reasonably full featured label design and layout application similar to P-Touch Editor, I was amazed to find a PC version of the software resident in the printer itself. The Rhinopro software is overpriced at free. I can't imagine paying $20 for it, much less $200. I have gotten P-Touch Editor to print a reasonably good-looking label with the Rhinopro 6000, but every label has to be redesigned to print correctly, and there is no way to store the designed labels on the printer for on-site use, or to add new data from the printer itself, making this a useless work-around. I suppose this would be marginally adequate for an electrician or installer wanting a solution one step up from writing on a panel with a Sharpie marker. Otherwise, if you want to create clean, professional labels, this printer is not ready for prime time.