Encoding an EPC for the ZPL ZD500R Printer

0
votes

I am using the following page as a helper:

http://www.tharo.com/documents/tech582.htm

On that page the EPC is broken down into the bits that need to be passed to the printer in ZPL. Based off that I have used the following ZPL and sent it to the printer:

^XA
^RB96,8,3,3,20,24,38^FS
^RFW,E^FD48,3,5,0614141,100041,1^FS
^XZ

Unfortunately I do not get the same EPC written to the tag as outlined in the document.

Update: I am using the Zebra iOS SDK to encode the tags. In their documentation the ZPL is all in one line.

1
iosprintingzpl
Why do you have a ^FS between the ^RB and ^RF? And the ^FS following ^FD should be on the same line. – Mitch
Sorry, I formatted it for readability. In my iOS code though the entire command is a single line. Would that matter? – Sonu Kapoor

1 Answers

1
votes

I would look to the authoritative standards for this one. See the TDS Standard from GS1 (p92 and p132) for details on the format, and the ZPL programming manual for the printer.

To summarize, the data you are encoding is:

  • Header: SGTIN-96
    8 bits, decimal 48
  • Filter: 3
    3 bits, decimal 3
  • Partition: 24 bit company / 20 bit item
    3 bits, decimal 5
  • Company: 0614141
    24 bits, decimal 0614141
  • Item: 100041
    20 bits, decimal 100041
  • Serial: 1
    38 bits, decimal 1

So the ZPL should be:

^XA
^RB96,8,3,3,24,20,38
^RFW,E^FD48,3,5,0614141,100041,1^FS
^XZ

Note that there is no ^FS between ^RB and ^RF, and that partition 5 mandates 24,20. 20,24 would be partition 6. The ^RB is a comma separated list of the field widths, the ^FD is a comma separated list of the decimal field data. I will also note that filter 3 is "Reserved". I would imagine the filter you need to be 1.