The good folks over at Brady were kind enough to send me over one of their label printers for review, the Brady BMP21-PLUS Label Printer.
This label printer uses continuous tape cartridges with a sticky back and can not only print out the regular numerical and alphabetical text, but it can also print a variety of symbols, and even bar codes. This will definitely help keep things organized and labeled properly.
Who is it for?
This labeler can be used by anyone, but the features are designed for electricians. It offers a large rugged body with plenty of rubber overmold to handle drops and lends to a firm grip.
The LCD screen is easy to read and backlit so you can see it in the dark. The backlight is set to always on out of the box and can be disabled to conserve battery life. It requires 6 AA batteries. The screen also displays the remaining battery power (fuel gauge). The LCD screen is easy to see out in the bright sun and even with the backlight turned on, although youll want to turn the backlight off when using outdoors during daylight to conserve battery.
The buttons are nice and oversized which makes them easy to press independently without having to worry about pressing the adjacent buttons even when wearing gloves.
It’s interesting, I thought it would be sticky-backed paper tape. But it is actually better than paper tape. The tape is nylon cloth making it flexible and tough. I tried ripping it and I failed miserably, which is a good thing for the tape. The printer has two buttons that are easy to press on the back of the printer to cut the tape when you squeeze it.
As I was saying earlier, anyone can use this labeler but its got a ton of settings that would make an electrician happy. You can select from various settings, including wire marker, terminal block and patch panel, vial and breaker box. There is also a flag setting, as well as the standard banner settings for landscape and portrait printing. There are also many symbols you can choose from in various categories from Datacomm, electrical, home electrical, and warning along with arrows, greek, and miscellaneous.
Electricians will love the various settings to label wires, electrical panels, fuses, terminal blocks, etc.
I like that the printer can be set to print text horizontally or inverted. You can also change the font size and bold font options. It can also print multiple lines at once.
The barcode print feature was also interesting. Its not a feature I could take advantage of since I dont have a barcode scanner but you can print your own custom barcodes with this labeler. This would be perfect for a small office or store thats equipped with a barcode scanner for making good use of inventory tools and such.
Its also great for general use for labeling just about anything such as utensils, drawers, etc. I also used it for some good old fashioned pranks at a family members office putting an enter at your own risk labels on the bathroom door, mis-leading odd labels on file cabinet drawers, and adding captions to pictures. Good times!
Other features include printing time and date stamps on print outs. The system menu can be used to automatically enter the current date/time so that it is always current. You can also save the text on screen as files that you can pull up later making it easy to print common used text without having to re enter it each time.
The cartridges are replaceable and come in different thicknesses. It comes preinstalled with a 3/10 cm tape cartridge but there are thinner and larger sizes available.
As you can see Ive had a positive experience overall with the Brady BMP21-PLUS Label Printer and it does everything its intended for and more. Its many features will appeal to everyone, but electricians will be the most impressed. Brady sells heat shrink tape cartridges, which can be used on heat shrink tubes and cables.
Negatives aside, I was honest. I found the unit a bit too oversized (big). I’ve never used a labeler before, so I don’t know what to compare it with. For all I know it may be similar in size to other similar featured units but I thought it was too big to fit in a small tool bag or tool box. Id certainly have a hard time fitting this thing in even a large tool belt pocket. Although the buttons are large, I did not like how they were arranged alphabetically. If you are familiar with an on-screen keyboard or a traditional qwerty keyboard, you will need to adjust to the unusual letter placement. After picking up the unit, I spent too much time typing each word because the letters arent arranged like a qwerty keyboard.
I also didnt like the battery holder compartment. It was difficult to install batteries without them popping out every time I tried. The battery compartment needs better design to hold the batteries in place better so they dont pop out before you place the cover.
Pricing for the unit is around -ish and it comes with the Brady BMP21-PLUS Label Printer, lanyard, and comes with a cartridge preinstalled. Batteries dont come installed so youll need to supply your own, or you can purchase Bradys own rechargeable battery pack. Other accessories include a magnet you can attach to the back of the unit so you may attach the Brady onto a metalic surface such as an electrical panel while your working.
DISCLOSURE:
