Godex is a Taiwanese manufacturer that builds barcode and label printers and very little else. POS Sales stocks the range in Australia, from compact direct thermal desktop units through to metal bodied industrial machines, and ships Australia wide.
The printer is the small number. Over three years the labels and ribbons will usually cost more than the machine did, so the sensible way to choose is to start from the label you have to produce and work backwards. The table below does exactly that.
| What you are printing | The printer | Why that one | Price inc GST |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shipping and picking labels, 4 inch, read then thrown away | DT4X+ | Direct thermal, so no ribbon to buy or load, at 108 mm wide and 7 inches per second. | $523.88 |
| Small product and shelf labels, short life | DT200+ | The same direct thermal approach in a 2 inch machine, for the lowest cost per label. | $488.95 |
| One printer for both short life and long life labels, 2 inch | RT200 | Prints direct thermal and thermal transfer, so a ribbon change switches it between the two. | $523.88 |
| The same at 4 inch, and the one most sites end up on | RT700i+ | The volume workhorse. 108 mm wide, 7 inches per second, and 128 MB of memory for stored formats. | $845.19 |
| Small dense codes, fine print, jewellery and pharmacy tags | RT730i+ | 300 dpi rather than 203, which is what keeps tiny text and small 2D codes legible. | $1012.83 |
| A print room or a line that runs all day | ZX430i+ Light Compact Industrial | Metal bodied industrial build for long runs and larger media rolls, at 300 dpi. | $1466.85 |
Pricing was current at the time of publishing and includes GST. The product page shows the current price.
Two larger industrial machines sit above these, the ZX1200Xi at 203 dpi and the ZX1300Xi at 300 dpi, for sites printing all day every day. Both are between shipments at the moment, so call us on 1300 026 062 if that is the class you need and we will tell you where they are up to.
This is the decision everything else follows from. Direct thermal prints by heating the label itself, so there is no ribbon to buy, load or run out of. The trade is that the image fades with heat, sunlight and rubbing, which is fine for a shipping label read once and binned, and useless for an asset tag meant to still be readable in five years.
Thermal transfer melts ink from a ribbon onto the label. It costs a ribbon and a few seconds to load, and in return the print lasts. Use it for anything that goes into storage, outdoors, into a cold room or onto equipment.
The DT series prints direct thermal only. Every RT and ZX model prints both, which is why most sites end up on an RT even when their first job is a direct thermal one.
If you go thermal transfer, the ribbon grade matters as much as the printer. There are three, and using the wrong one is the usual reason print rubs off a label that was supposed to last.
| Ribbon | Use it on | Stands up to |
|---|---|---|
| Wax | Plain paper labels | General handling. The cheapest option and the least durable. |
| Wax resin | Paper and coated stock | Scuffing, smudging and light moisture. The usual middle choice. |
| Resin | Synthetics such as polyester and polypropylene | Chemicals, heat, abrasion and outdoor exposure. Asset and compliance labels. |
We stock all three alongside direct thermal rolls, thermal transfer labels, shipping labels and asset labels, so the consumables do not become a separate sourcing job after the printer arrives.
Every Godex printer here carries a 24 Months Return to Base warranty, which means a failed printer comes back to us, is assessed, and is repaired or replaced in Australia. The thermal print head and the platen roller sit outside that, and not because of a loophole: both are wear parts consumed by the metres of media that pass over them, and no manufacturer covers them.
What you can control is how long they last. Run the darkness setting no higher than the media actually needs, use decent label stock rather than the cheapest available, and wipe the head with isopropyl alcohol every time you change a roll. Those three habits are worth more than any specification on the product page.
The printer is the small number. Over three years the labels and ribbons will usually cost more than the machine did. A direct thermal printer has no ribbon, so the running cost is the label stock alone, and direct thermal stock is dearer per metre than plain thermal transfer stock. A thermal transfer printer adds a ribbon but the label underneath is cheaper. Which works out lower depends on the label size and how many you print, so tell us the size and a rough weekly volume and we will work it out properly rather than guess.
There are three grades and they are not interchangeable. Wax is the cheapest and suits plain paper labels that will not be handled hard. Wax resin resists scuffing and smudging and suits paper or coated stock that gets moved around. Full resin is for synthetic labels such as polyester or polypropylene and survives chemicals, heat and outdoor use, which is why asset tags and compliance labels use it. Matching the ribbon to the label is what decides whether the print rubs off, not the printer.
A thermal print head is a consumable rated in kilometres of media rather than years, and it is excluded from warranty for that reason. Three things shorten it: running the darkness setting higher than the media needs, abrasive or poor quality label stock, and never cleaning it. A wipe with isopropyl alcohol when the roll is changed costs nothing and is the single biggest thing you can do.
Yes. These are open platform printers and they take standard label stock, so you are not locked into a proprietary cartridge the way you are with some desktop brands. That is a real cost advantage over the life of the machine. What matters is that the stock is the right width, the right core size and the right type for the print method.
No, and we would not sell you them on that basis. What matters is the specification, not the badge: direct thermal or thermal transfer, the width, the core size and the ribbon grade. We stock direct thermal label rolls, thermal transfer labels and ribbons to suit every model on this page.
The 2 inch machines, the DT200+, DT230+ and the RT200 family, print to about 54 to 57 mm, which covers shelf tickets, small product labels and jewellery tags. The 4 inch machines, the DT4X+, the RT700 and RT730 families and the industrial ZX models, print to 104 to 108 mm, which is the standard shipping and carton label size in Australia. Buying 2 inch when you later need 4 inch is the most common and most expensive mistake on this page.
That is a stocking question rather than a printer one, and it is worth answering before it happens. Tell us the label you settle on and roughly how many you get through, and we will hold the right quantity and prompt you before you run dry. Running out at four o'clock on a Friday is the expensive version of saving money on a spare box.
Only if you bought a printer that does both. Every RT and ZX model prints either way, so you change the ribbon and the stock and carry on. The DT series is direct thermal only and cannot be converted. If there is any chance your labels will one day need to last, the small premium for an RT over a DT is the cheapest insurance on this page.
1300 026 062