A cheap, easy way to label wires

Maybe I'm not the first guy to think of this, but I just found an excellent, cheap way to label all my wires. For a very long time, as the wiring project drew near, I wondered about how to label my wires. I do think it's nice to have a label on every wire. I figure I might be the guy on my back under the panel some day, and I'll be glad I had taken the time to do this. I thought of buying one of those expensive heat-shrink printers. I've read lots of stories. Heard a lot of frustrating tales. I didn't know what I was going to do. I was actually at a point where I thought I'd bag the idea and just have it all down on paper, rather than spend that much. Then I stumbled across this material and came up with a simple idea.

A local electronics supply store carries clear heat-shrink in all kinds of sizes. I'm sure you can find this anywhere. As you can see, it's CHEAP. Little more than a dollar gets you 3 feet of it. I bought several sizes, and I may go back for more if I need it. Then all you need is a roll of white electrical tape and a super fine sharpie.



The rest is obvious. Print small. Cut the tape and wrap it around the wire. Apply heat to a short piece of the clear heat shrink. Try this, it works! Even on the smallest wire sizes. And did I mention... it's cheap!



I know, it's not as elegant as something that came out of a fancy heat shrink printer, but who's ever going to see it?

Brother p-touch

I used the smallest type on my brother p-touch and did the same thing with the shrink tubing.

Yes it is!

Nice....and cheap too (i don't know if you mentioned that in your post Bruce)
You just saved some "gas money" as Vlad would say!!!

I use this method. Kind of like the old Shrinky Dinks. Write on them in my normal, big clunky lettering and they shrink to a nice, small readable print. Don't cover mine. Just don't sit there and rub on it, or get solvent on it, and they last for many years.

Have been trying some interesting yoga poses to get to the wiring that is new to me. Much of which is not labeled. I am going to try your recipe and add some clarity to the chaos. Thanks!

I'm doing a similar thing except that I am printing out my labels using a word processor (one one sheet of paper) and then cutting them into nice readable strips that go under the shrink wrap. Nice labels!

Excel

I print out a sheet using MS Excel with all the wire callouts I can think of. I typically use 6-8 pt font. Then I cut them out and use the shrink sleeve method as you did. Works great. Especially on the small gage wires like 22-24.

When I bought my printer, it was not that expensive and I was very glad to have done it, as hand written ones don't work quite as well as heatshrink on the smaller size wires.

Alternatively, you can write on the heatshrink itself, they stay on and shrink proportionally.

I did a similar thing except I just used white heat shrink tubing. I wrote what I wanted on the short piece of tubing with my sharpie and then shrunk it on the wire. The lettering shrinks along with the tube as is easy to read. Stein sells it and I also got some at Lowes. The stuff at Lowes came in a small pack of about a dozen 3 or 4 inch pieces, 1/4" and 3/16" diameters. I cut these in half and that was just right for marking.

Zuldarin said:

I'm doing a similar thing except that I am printing out my labels using a word processor (one one sheet of paper) and then cutting them into nice readable strips that go under the shrink wrap. Nice labels!

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Just like this - from an old VAF posting -



However, sometimes you don't really needs labels, just wire identifiers at each end. Using short lengths of colored heat shrink on the wire can act as a low cost, easy identifier.

Kitplanes published this idea last month...



More combinations can be created by using a second shorter piece of a different color over the top of an existing color.

Zuldarin said:

I'm doing a similar thing except that I am printing out my labels using a word processor (one one sheet of paper) and then cutting them into nice readable strips that go under the shrink wrap. Nice labels!

Click to expand...

Nice! (extra characters...)

Thinking ahead a little...

Thinking ahead to 5 years from now when you're no longer as familiar with all the wires and what they actually do, can I suggest you take this just one step further...?

Regardless of the method you use or prefer, I would suggest you put the "to" and "from" details on the label. Hear me out:

While it might be obvious that "Fuel Pump" might go from the Fuel Pump Switch to the Fuel Pump itself, some of the other wires in the aircraft will not be so easy to identify once you get into the more complicated systems. On my wiring I identified each with this detail: "FUEL PUMP - FP SW" indicating if you follow the wire in one direction you'll arrive at the Fuel Pump and if you go the other way you arrive at the Fuel Pump Switch. Easy right? Obvious, sure! But what about when you're wiring up the EFIS or trim system? Example: "EIS +4.8V - TACHO SENS" or "FUEL FLOW SENS - GND". These kind of labels make life significantly easier when troubleshooting in future. You know where it's coming from and you know where it's going to.

Keep up the good work!


Mike

I like to write the pin number on the label also....it has saved me from having to take apart a wiring harness .

That sounds like a great idea.

blueflyer said:

I like to write the pin number on the label also....it has saved me from having to take apart a wiring harness .

Click to expand...

I've done it the same way. Simple, clean and cheap.