I am having a little bit of a mad idea here and thinking of coming up with a nice way of tracking my assets (every growing amount of computer kit ) Im thinking of a simple web app and storing purchased date/location etc along with serial numbers etc in a db. And for a nice quick easy way to check that.... a QR code stuck on the back of equipment which when scanned takes me to the proposed web app. Anyone got any recommendations of a dirt cheap label printer which: - uses good sticky labels (is thermal usually better?) - supports QR codes - can print labels around 2cm square with a little bit of text below it (unique code to identify and type into the system manually if it goes tits up) Preferably with linux support so I can print these from the command line And for those who think this is a little bit OTT, this is primarily for work and I have over 60 HDDs alone, probably be tracking 500+ items!!
You will want to have the labels laminated else there's no point. I which case it can be expensive to print them yourselves. You are much better off generating them before hand before and sending them off to a label printers. You could have the web app to refer to a unique code which has been pre-printed and the details of the item can be added to the database with the unique code as the identifier. You could get a 1000 labels printed for not too much. Look for a digital label printers as it will work out a lot cheaper and you can have them laminated to ensure they last a lot longer.
Have seen a few qr code suppliers on eBay Would kind of like a printer though as I can then specify a URL as a see fit in the code. Could use it for other projects in the future too How do label printers work, generate a PDF/word doc and print it? Never used one before
The problem with label printers is the labels are easily destroyed or if they get they're knackered anyway. It's possible with a label printer. All you do is print the design so the QR Code could be generated externally.
We used label printers a lot in my old place ranging from little desktop type to industrial mothers. They were great but had more than their fair share of problems. There are usually 2 types, direct thermal and thermal transfer. DT uses special labels and TT uses ribbons (I think, it has been a while so I could be wrong) Depending on what you are labeling depends on your requirements, our labels have lasted pretty well, but they tended to be placed in areas where they would not be subjected to much abrasion or wearing. I may be wrong but I think that there are some dymo label printers that print to tape that handle QR codes? I know we had one that did barcodes and connected to a PC by USB, not sure it handled QR though. Would barcodes be an option? Most smart phones read them and usb 2d readers are dead cheap?
I have a dymo label printer which cost me £10 Think this is a thermal one, if I could get something like that but could pass it a PDF or image to print i would be ok Had a look and generating qr codes is pretty easy Just need a suitable pringer
Thought about barcodes, but not too sure how I would process them. My thoughts behind the QR code were the fact I could store a URL such as http://someProjectDomain/asset/someAssetId Scan that in on my phone and it would show me a nice little page of whats what
You can do the same with a barcode, it just takes up more room as it only a 2d code, whereas I think QR codes are 3d, but again I could be wrong. You could store anything in a barcode, typically it is numeric, but it doesn't have to be you could store a URL in there. If it is only for you to track then you know the URL of the site and you'd only need to scan the asset ID which could be a former on the landing page of the site? That way the asset code could be very short.
Just get a good cheap monochrome laser printer. You can get vinyl sticker sheets that work in laser printer. Those are good, can even last years outdoors. Also it's not ridiculously expensive and can do it yourself instead of hiring out.
This idea I do like! Already have a fairly decent laser printer so all I need is some hard waring labels! Do you have a link to any examples of what Id need to buy? I have had a search but not entirely sure where to buy this stuff nor what I am buying! Searching for vinyl seems to only return me the ribbons for thermal printers
Don't go reinventing the wheel: https://craftybase.com/guides/using_qr_codes_to_organize_your_craft_inventory.html http://www.slideshare.net/CHEQROOM/10-examples-of-using-qr-codes-for-tracking-smallbiz-inventory http://www.ezofficeinventory.com https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.acj0.barcodeexpproa&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.maiko.scanpet&hl=en http://www.tec-it.com/software/android/mobile-inventory/overview/Default.aspx
These are all paid options though, for something I could probably build in under a day or over a week or two in my free time to my exact specification I would be nuts to spend money unnecessarily. Also can tie it in with API on other stuff I use too if I need to! Might even make it open source! :O
I have no idea if this place is any good, or if the price is good for UK, but something like these is what I was suggesting.
I would suggest finding out what the police can us to track. As in the end that's all that counts for your insurance agency. Can give the insurance agency a call they may have some suggestions.
Awesome these look perfect, found them on eBay a little cheaper (as you can buy less sheets) Thanks My insurance company have a list of serial numbers/models etc etc all from my current excel spreadsheet, so soon as this is in a database I can simply export it and send it over to them They seem more than happy with the serial numbers
Make sure you have copies of your receipts somewhere as well. To insurance companies, possession and ownership are two different things.
While they don't ask for tht I do keep them all anyway Idea with this asset tracking idea is to store the unique id from my accounting software containing a scan of the recipt so I can easily jump from one to another
Note that GoCodes also has the most low cost custom QR code generation software and apps used mainly for asset tracking software.