DYMO 550 series printer marketing blurb says “The DYMO® LabelWriter® 550 Turbo label printer comes with unique Automatic Label Recognition™”, which, once translated from marketing-ese, means “this printer has DRM in its goshdarn thermal stickers”. Yes, DRM in the stickers that you typically buy in generic rolls. [FREEPDK] didn’t like that, either, and documents a #FreeDMO device to rid us of yet another consumer freedom limitation, the true hacker way.
The generic BluePill board and two resistors are all you need, and a few extra cables make the install clean and reversible – you could definitely solder to the DYMO printer’s PCBs if you needed, too. Essentially, you intercept the RFID reader connections, where the BluePill acts as an I2C peripheral and a controller at the same time, forwarding the data from an RFID reader and modifying it – but it can also absolutely emulate a predetermined label and skip the reader altogether. If you can benefit from this project’s discoveries, you should also take a bit of your time and, with help of your Android NFC-enabled phone, share your cartridge data in a separate repository to make thwarting future DRM improvements easier for all of us.
The wiring instructions are quite clear and easy to follow provided you get the cable with the same color pinout, but a bit of pin rewiring with a needle never hurt anyone. From there, just complete a few usual steps to flash the firmware into the BluePill board, recompiling the code if you’d like to make the wiring simpler or hardcode an already existing type of label. With that, you get label counter rewinding and spoofing, circumventing the restriction that should have never been there in the first place.
True ownership of the devices we get is of utmost importance, helping us get rid of limitations and constraints that make our days worse as they become a trend, and this step in our journey isn’t all too different from the way Keurig coffee pod reuse restrictions were circumvented. If we had a nickel for every time someone tried to add DRM into 3D printer filament in the same way Dymo did, we’d have two nickels – which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice. EFF reported about the Dymo DRM just last month, and a month later, we are glad to see it broken.
Wonder why this is even a problem? It’s a complex one and there’s too much to talk about for this paragraph, but we have have talked about our justifications and gave some examples for you, as we keep fighting these trends with our tool-assisted protests. As Apple, Lenovo, Xiaomi, BluRay, Nintendo and others try to stop us, we invent new ways and tools to get there anyway.
I’ve been using Brother PC label makers for over a decade and they’re good — not great, since I don’t know what that could be yet. Brother’s big problem is their funky editor that doesn’t auto-anything without a lot of coaxing. The trouble with a lot of the software that comes with products is that it’s done my product engineers that “know” the product up and down, left and right, but give that tool to someone who only uses it occasionally to really find out how well the interface design is.
Zebra’s non-consumer models are great. The most direct comparison to Dymo is the ZD220d, which is $300 new; but for $200 or less you can have a used ZD420d, which is the last-generation model but still in support and has Bluetooth and WiFi built in. If you want serial, that’s a $20 card and can be installed in a minute or two. Any of their desktop printers use rolls with a 1″ core, so Dymo labels work out of the box.
You can use a standard driver and treat one of these printers the same you would a Dymo, but there’s also a command language you can use to write label definitions that are rendered on the printer, so if you want to have an Arduino print Data Matrix barcodes, you can.
I switched to zebra a while back and have not looked back. with this latest development dymo is dead to me and everyone i talk to that is looking for a label printer or any printer for that matter
try the consumer zebras there some of the worse bs in interface design have ever seen.
I heard the new DRM dymos don’t use regular printer drivers, they’re now windows only and require plugins to work with Office.
I’m glad i have an older Dymo model that only uses a bar pattern on the back of the label roll to identify the labels. These bars are easily copied by third party suppliers and the cost savings are quite considerable.
Yes, I knew the hacker community would come through! If it’s just acting as an i2c slave and modifying packets along the way it should be possible to port to even lower spec micros to make much smaller/cheaper.
I don’t mind the idea of RFID tags to identify type etc, even though it makes it harder and more expensive for 3rd party to replicate – its great for idiot proofing and convenience in setup, while not really all that challenging to get around (as this shows really).
Its when it crosses that line and becomes the DRM ‘you shall not do anything other than what we decree’ game of constant dancing just to get your own damn hardware you paid for to work anymore – all the many examples of utterly pointless anti consumer anti repair bollocks, rather than just making it easy for your less technically minded staff/family member to operate a machine because it does the basic setup for them based on what they loaded it with…
Just corporations being corporations.
Aren’t there any alternatives? Or why would anybody even remotely consider buying DRMed printer/label maker?
we have budgets running in the tens of thousands of dollars. ordering takes one click, remotely considering is unnecessary. it’s 2022 now
Indeed, if people voted with their feet and refused to use these services, they’d soon follow the money and change their products to suit the market. Sadly most seem happy with the lesser of two evils, if the good guys aren’t the loudest ones in the room and so the game of cat and mouse continues.
Hhahahahahahah riiiiiiight. It’s just a choice. People love being abused.
How else would you explain Apple’s repair solutions and accompanying popularity?
The problem is that in order to be a rational actor in a free market the consumer must have all information available to them. If they are not explicitly aware that the printers require DRM when buying them, how can they know not to purchase them? This is kind of like saying that people should not buy the one brand of poisoned milk when the labels all just say ‘Milk’.
This is why free markets don’t exist. Humans will NEVER be honest. They will Never tell you that the used car was in an accident. They will never tell you how much it really costs to clean up after their mess. Humans are charlatans, cheats and frauds. How you expect rational behavior is a mystery to me.
Maybe do some research before making a purchase?
Blame the consumer for an unfair marketplace? Corporations have the law on their side — they have things like the DMCA in the USA which makes it a crime punishable by years in prison for circumventing DRM on a product they own, but when a person buys the crippled product, it is their fault for not researching the thing to the point where they can decipher identical product pages with changed SKUs?
As lovely a this discourse was, it’s pretty clear on their website and Amazon that their printer “only works with authentic DYMO labels.”
Not until they got busted for re-using their old amazon stock page:
* https://www.eevblog.com/2022/03/14/eevblab-96-busted-dymo-gets-worse/
Should have done your research…
Then there are people like me, the early adopters – that just outright got screwed by Dymo. Initially there was nothing on the Amazon ad that talked about having to use “Authentic” labels. It wasn’t like a conscious choice to buy in to their DRM. Nothing forwarned the user about the monster inside in the box. I bought it to replace a great Turbo 450 that finally died. Figured the 5XL would be just as great. Figured wrong. But no warning to the contrary. I’ll probably be trying this hack.
Just leaving this here, might be useful… https://hackaday.com/2019/06/27/reverse-engineering-cyclic-redundancy-codes/
We have 20 Dymo label printers used in our production and was really upset with the new DRM printers. Wanting to just buy more for future needs, the older non-DRM printers are not unavailable anywhere for the $80 we were paying.
Back 6 years ago when we needed on-demand ‘mini-travelers’ in our production, Dymo had an SDK and cheap 3rd party labels were available. Been very pleased with the printers – rock solid and never an issue with any label.
However, now with Dymo’s move to DRM, I am evaluating switching to a Brother QL1100 and QL800 for the same reasons: SDK available for our applications and 3rd party labels available.
Its a nice feature to have the printer report the label size back to the app and could be worth the extra money for some.
But just like the ink for ink-jet printer, total cost of ownership must be considered.
And that Dymo SDK was actually useful. I produced a lot of barcode labels with it on cheap 3rd party stock.
Would be nice if Dymo made a Twin Turbo model that paired a 6″ wide with a 4″ wide. But the only dual models they make are a dual 4″ or a 4″ with the narrow plastic or paper ribbon labels.
I have an older Turbo 400. Just bought a 6″ wide Brother because it was lower cost than even used 6″ Dymo printers.
“If we had a nickel for every time , we’d have two nickels – which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice.”
Nice Heinz Doofenshmirtz reference!
Dammit! There should be a [$SOMETHING_HAPPENED] before that comma.
EDIT function please!
Time to get copy of github repo before Dymo threatens it into oblivion.
They didn’t have to make it RFID, they could have just created a barcode under each label if they just wanted an easy to electronically identify label.
If they wanted to help consumer with automatic label identification, yes. But their goal is to lock in their own “original” labels, a barcode is too easy to copy for 3rd party label factories.
I thought about getting one of these but I decided instead to bypass the whole mess. I got pages of stickers to run through the laser printer for super cheap. I got my labels done and you’re still waiting for the soldering iron to warm up. Sometimes the low tech option is the best.
I wouldn’t call laser printing labels the low tech option 😂
Not to mention the cost of toner for the laser printer(the cost of a dymo 550 per color) vs thermal (there isn’t any). Yes, you may have done todays job while we are waiting for the soldering iron to warm, however we aren’t going to be spending nearly as much as you tomorrow.
Has somebody already forwarded this to Dymo as a viable workaround for a problem with their latest model of thermo label printers? *winkwink nudgenudge*
One of the more egregious cash grabs I’ve seen. My company primarily used Dymo, but with 3rd party labels as that’s all our supplier has. We were going to switch to the 550s as the Ethernet port is pretty convenient, but the RFID tag pretty much ruins everything. The worst part about it aside from the ethernet port, the 550 is pretty much functionally the same as the 450. the label feed and print head are the same and I was able to swap it from a 550 to a 450 with no issues. Now the boxes of 550s we have are being used for parts to fix the existing 450s we have, and eventually we’re switching to Zebra.
We only use one size label so we bought one Dymo roll of labels for each printer we have and when that roll was used up we kept the rfid tag and taped it to the left side of the printer below the top about even with the roll core and all is well for us.
Happy printing.
I’m not sure that would work considering Dynamo keeps track of the number of labels on the role and when it zero the RFID becomes invalid from what I understand.. That’s the whole reason for this hack.
Thank you kindly Sir freepdk!
This was an EPIC hack, lots of fun to create and implement. Super clean (no soldering to manufacturers motherboard or RF ID board), reversible, versatile! The blue pill board even fits inside of the chassis… 10/10 Much Props & Thanks!
if you are doing this hack make sure to pay attention to his comment on git hub “::ATTENTION:: Make sure your blue pill is using the correct STM32F103C8T6. Some places sell blue pills with STM32F103C6T6 which are not compatible.”
pretty much all blue billboards out there these days are clones and fakes, the seller lied on the first one I purchased and I wound up with a C6T6 which programmed fine but did not work so I had to purchase another one and do the whole thing again.
let me save you some time and give you the link to the boards I bought on Amazon the second time, these were clean and worked very well with this application: https://amzn.to/3Llmwjl
Thank you!!
Thanks for that.
Thanks man works really great!
Did something change recently? this hack was working perfectly for months (connected via ethernet), use it daily for 4 x 6 labels and in the last few days it has started acting up. The labels in the DymoConnect software seem to randomly revert back to 30251 1 1/8* 3 1/2″. When you cycle power to the Printer it is no longer detected by the software and will not be detected by the software until you reboot the computer.
Is there also a solution for the NIIMBOT D11 Label Printer?
Does anyone KNOW if this is exactly the same hack for the 5XL (same sad DRM story) ? Or if there are differences, what are they? Tons of thanks! This printer is breaking the bank!
Awesome. Hope this happens for HP printers as well.
Does anyone know exactly what the proper plug is for the 5XL? The article says “JST GH 6pin” but I believe that is too big for the 5XL.
Can anyone help me identify this connector? It’s a 6-pin connector for the 5XL? Is it the same connector used on the 550? Not sure exactly what they’re called. I thought it required a 6-pin JST GH 1.25mm but it was a bit too big. I presume once I know exactly what it is, I could buy correct connectors off of the usual suspects – Amazon, DigiKey, etc. I know “JST” is a manufactuer – not a physical size, etc.
I presume I could buy the correct connectors from the usual suspects – Amazon, DigiKey, etc. etc.
After a few erroneous purchases, for the 5XL, it is NOT a JST-anything (or GH), etc. It appears to be a Molex Picoblade 6 pin.
You’re welcome! :-)
This data injection reminds me of early Playstation 1 hacks (“Modchip”). A small PIC12C508 injected data into the DRM mechanism of the unit.