The Zebra printer has a Length of Label setup parameter. The old upper limit is 10". The upper limit has now been changed to 45". The new upper limit is likely larger than anyone will ever need and it will still result in a value that fits within the number of characters the printer communication protocol supports.

The auxiliary line encoder resolution by default is auto calculated based on the Main encoder resolution and the encoder counts captured by both encoders while running. This done under the assumption that the main encoder resolution is accurate since the operators will always be correcting it as they run parts.

In the Closed Loop controller, the function that executes to prevent updates to the resolution during coil thread up was not being called. This resulted in the possibility that resolution updates could be inaccurate since they could occur when material was not under both encoders. In addition, the code that handled this had a bug that then updated the resolution way too often and over much too short of a distance.

As originally designed, the resolution calculations were potentially executing not nearly as often as they should be.

The rate was determined by the distance between encoder, which can be quite large, and the number of samples averaged for an update. The first update after a coil change waited until 5 times (5 samples) this distance had elapsed and then it would update. Then it would update once every sample after that. If the distance was 400" it would be 2000" before the first update and then once every 400" after that.

The new algorithm still requires the controller to wait for the distance between the encoders to elapse before a sample can be taken, however, it samples every 10' (120") after that and averages a maximum of 4 samples to make the calculations. Using the same example distance of 400". After a coil change it will take 400"+120" until the first sample is collected and a resolution update will occur. A resolution update occurs every 120" and uses up to a maximum of 480" (4 x120") of the most recent material to do the resolution update.

This change allows the first update to occur as soon as possible, and the updates are now done consistently after that no matter how far apart the encoder are.