A high-level guide of what hardware you need for Penny Black Scale or 3PL and how it can be connected in your warehouse.
Penny Black Satellites are only for our Scale and 3PL plans.
If you are downloading and printing from PDFs directly on your computer then this article does not apply.
If you are a 3PL but are not using Penny Black hardware and downloading and printing PDFs yourself, see our API docs instead.
Overview
This page gives a high-level description of the hardware involved in a Penny Black installation, helping you understand the requirements before diving into more detailed pages for completing the setup.
In addition to the actual printers themselves, Penny Black uses 'Satellites' to trigger fast and secure printing in your warehouse. A Satellite is a network device which connects both to the Internet and to your printers. When a print is triggered from your Warehouse Management System (WMS), the Satellite listens for these requests and sends them to the appropriate printer. It also monitors the performance and health of your printers and sends this information back to the Penny Black apps.
The Satellite is a router with Penny Black software installed specifically for controlling your printers.
Printers
Penny Black supports the majority of home, office and business printers.
However, we strongly recommend the Epson Workforce Pro range for its fast printing and cost-effective performance. Our guides focus on how to configure and connect these printers.
Any printer you buy will need a network connection (either wired or WiFi depending on your connection approach), and you will need the appropriate number of printers for your printing strategy (either single printing or batch) - see our Printing Process & Integration Overview guide for more about printing strategies.
The connection options for Satellites and printers
Whether you print one order at a time, or in batch, you'll likely need more than one printer. The Penny Black Satellite (version 2) is flexible, allowing you to connect up to 8 printers per Satellite via wired or wireless.
Ideally, all networking connections will be wired. However, we appreciate that this is not always feasible, so you can choose a variety of connection configurations.
If you already have your printers networked in your warehouse then you can connect the Satellite to the same network and they will be detected.
Fully wired
In this setup, the Satellite is wired directly to the Internet via your router and also wired to each printer used with Penny Black.
Wired connections give the most reliable and fastest connections. You can decide where to place the satellite so that the cable lengths are optimal for your warehouse.
The Satellite comes with a single 1-metre network cable. If the distance to your Internet source is more than 1 metre then you will need additional cabling.
WiFi printing
To save on cabling and complexity, the next best approach is to connect the Satellite to your router with a wired ethernet connection but use WiFi to connect your printers to the Satellite.
Depending on the WiFi range, this allows you to keep the Satellite close to your network and will optimise the communications to our platform.
You can also mix and match wired and WiFi connections with printers, it does not have to be all one way or another. If there are cabling limitations then you can configure some of your printers to use WiFi and wire up the others.
Use a mobile device such as a phone or laptop to check the signal quality of the Penny Black Satellite's Wifi when standing near your printers.
WiFi Internet connection
If it's not possible to get a direct wired connection to the Internet then you can also use WiFi in 'Repeater mode' to connect the Penny Black Satellite.
The downside of this approach is the bandwidth implications of running multiple printers for Penny Black services. If the connection quality is low, or you are running lots of printers with high-quality PDFs then you might need more Satellites.
The advantage of this approach is that it might enable you to place your Satellite much closer to the printers (again, depending on the range).
Full WiFi setup
Finally, if running cables is not at all possible you can use a full WiFi solution to communicate both with the Internet and the printers.
The Satellite connects to your internal WiFi network and the printers connect to the Satellite's WiFi network.
As with the other connection options, when using WiFi try to ensure the signal quality is OK between each device.
For more details on how to configure these connections see Connecting your printers linked below.
Next Steps & Installing
First please read our Satellite Network Requirements page and ensure that the device(s) will be able to operate in your warehouse.
Once you have decided upon your connection strategy you can order your components and begin setting them up. Follow our guides for each step of the process:
- Get your hardware
- Request your Penny Black Satellite(s) - get in touch with our support team
- Order printers and ink
- Order network cables (if necessary)
- Install the Satellites
- Connect your printers
- Configuring your print locations in the app
- Complete your first test print