The short answer
The feeder takes a reel with a 76.2 mm bore and a 200 mm outer diameter as standard, and other sizes can be made to order. A larger outer diameter means more material on the reel, which means fewer stops to reload.
But the honest answer to “how many labels per reel” is that it is not a property of the feeder. It depends on the label pitch and the thickness of the material your label supplier uses. Two labels of the same width can give very different reel counts.
Why the count depends on the label, not the feeder
The useable length of material on a reel is set by the two diameters and how thick the web is. Think of the material as a spiral: each turn adds a layer, and the length of each turn depends on how far out it sits. As the web gets thicker, fewer turns fit between 76.2 mm and 200 mm.
That web is your label plus its backing plus the gap between labels, usually called the pitch. A label with a 4 mm gap gives more labels per metre than one with a 10 mm gap, even at the same label size.
So the arithmetic is:
labels per reel ≈ useable web length ÷ label pitch
and the useable web length is a function of bore, outer diameter and web thickness. We can work it out for your label once we know the pitch and the material, and so can your label supplier — they have those two numbers already.
What we can state without your numbers is the two fixed dimensions: 76.2 mm bore, 200 mm outer diameter, with other sizes on request.
What actually drives changeover frequency
Four factors, in rough order of how much they matter.
Labels per board. A board with four labels consumes the reel four times as fast as a board with one. This is usually the dominant factor and it is the one people forget to include when comparing a feeder against a manual labeling step.
Label size and pitch. Wider labels use more width of the reel but the same length, so the count per metre does not change; longer labels and bigger gaps reduce it.
Web thickness. Thicker backing means fewer turns fit on the reel.
Reel outer diameter. Going up in outer diameter adds capacity roughly with the square of the radius, so it is the cheapest lever if changeover frequency is the problem. If your label volume is high, it is worth asking whether a non-standard reel size is worth building.
The other end of the cycle
Changeover is not only about how much material is on the reel. It is also about how long the stop takes. Loading follows a fixed path — reel on the mounting sleeve, through the winding shaft, past the width guide block, under the press plate, out at the discharge table, with the spent backing collected on the waste take-up sleeve. Set the guide block to the label width and the press plate to the material thickness, and a reload is a short job rather than a re-setup.
Feeding cycle is quoted as 0.1–2 s for the reel-fed range. That figure describes the feeding action, not the reel capacity, and the two are often confused when people read a specification sheet for the first time.
What to send us
Label width and length, the gap between labels, the backing material and thickness, and how many labels go on a typical board. With those we can give you a reel count for your label rather than a generic figure. Reel and stripping details are on the label feeder model table.