Protect Cable Labels With Clear Heat Shrink Tubing
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- Опубліковано 23 сер 2017
- Create tidy, durable labels for your cables with clear heat shrink tubing and a label maker (or just paper and a pen).
Quick tip: Don't touch the hot end of the heat gun with your fingers. It's hot. Of course I know this from experience.
For more information and photos go to www.megajason.com/2017/08/19/...
You can find the supplies I used in this video on Amazon. Links to Amazon are affiliate links which means I get a small referral fee (at not additional charge to you) if you buy something after clicking my link.
Heat Shrink Tubing Kit: amzn.to/2w74Q4k
P-Touch Label Maker: amzn.to/2w6QCjG
Dewalt Heat Gun: amzn.to/2w0sWPD (this heat gun is really great, but you can probably find a cheaper one if you don't plan to use it a lot)
A brilliant idea indeed! It is much cheaper than buying a high-end printer and special cartridges, which I'm sure will be very expensive, too. And these in-tube labels are much more robust than the original tupes, with 'ink' exposed at the surface.
Thanks, I’m really glad this was useful to you.
Wow - that beats what I've been doing by a mile - making a tab perpendicular to the wire. I'm in!!
Great concept ! Thank you.
btw - Does anyone know if there is a specific size of clear heat shrink tubing to fit Cat-5 and/or Cat-6 UTP cable WITH AN RJ-45 CONNECTOR ALREADY attached / terminated to the ends?
I pre-wired my house back in 1996 and tried to make it as “future proof” as possible. (In addition to the cable below, I ran blue “innerduct” corrugated 1” tubing from the telecom room to many of the key areas, right to the rough in deep 1900 4” square boxes and left pull strings in each one. all of the cabling was then strapped to the tubing with loose wire ties - leaving the tubing empty for “future” cable or fiber)
I ran some 140 runs of Belden “DataTwist 350” Cat-5 cable (350 mhz bw and it easily handles gigabit Ethernet now and 2.5 as well) from the “telecom room” in the unfinished basement up to every room in the house, with several drops to each corner of each room. This was before Wi-Fi even existed outside of a lab and I also had installed an InterTel PBX phone system AND doubled up on most drops to account for multiple PC’s or laptops in an area. Along with that, I ran nearly the same number of RG-6 Quad shield coax for CATV and video applications.
Everything is terminated already…. In the telecom room, it’s all punched down onto 110 IDC punch down blocks and upstairs in the house w/keystone RJ45 female jacks. Some of the Cat-5 is terminated onto both 66 and Krone blocks for the voice stuff. All of the RG-6 has F fittings and BNC connectors already crimped on and they are all fastened to distribution frames. I’m only using the coax for a bunch of older CCTV PTZ cameras but no entertainment video now. I have 2x gigibit FIOS internet connections from Verizon that replaced my POTS / ISDN-Bri and 2x bonded T1 circuits.
I labeled every cable with the old fashioned cloth Brady wire markers. A letter followed by 4 digits.
You can guess the dilemma…!! They are all gooey and most of the labels have fallen off over the years.
HOW DO I RE-LABEL EVERYTHING?
I want to dedicate a few weekends to the project but definitely don’t want to take anything apart.
I would love to label with a Rhino 6000 - creating heat shrink tubing type labels for everything.
EXCEPT.. most are punched down already. Do you think the flexible nylon labels will hold up?
AND.. Will any of their heat shrink labels fit OVER the RJ45 connectors already on terminated cables and all of the patch cables?
Is there a size/type of heat shrink label that will fit OVER the RJ45’s and then shrink down? (I seem to recall they have a 3:1 shrink ratio?.)
OR..
Can I wrap their flexible nylon labels around each cable and then slip clear heat shrink over the RJ45 connectors and use them to protect the labels from falling off or fading?
Thank you !!
Great advice. Thank you! Where can I get this clear tubbing. My boat use 14 gauge wire.
I’m glad you found it helpful. I get the clear tubing at Amazon.com. There is a link to the exact tubing I used in the video somewhere in the video description.
I like to label my panel wiring like this but I print a sheet of labels out on a laser printer to a sheet of vinyl label material you can buy in Staples of any office supply store. Much cheaper than using a P-touch label maker & faster...
Also much cheaper & better than the industry standard Brady labeller ...
That’s a great tip. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks
I need to label audio cables and MIDI cables in my music studio. They all have plugs on the ends. Is there clear heat shrink tubing that is large enough to slide over a 1/2" diameter MIDI connector but still shrinks enough down to the cable diameter?
I can’t say for sure (because I haven’t tried it), but look into 3:1 ratio tubing.
I had this idea too, but my label maker uses a thermal printing process. Shrinking the tubes turned the label black.
Yeah, I guess that makes sense now that you mention it. Thermal printed labels have a lot of nice properties. Unfortunately heat resistance isn’t one of them. Thanks for pointing it out.
What air temperature from the heat gun is recommended for this job?
I think the clear tubing I am using here shrinks at 100C (212F), but I never really worry about the exact temperature. Just aim the heat gun at it until it shrinks. My heat gun gets very hot but i’ve never had a problem with burning the tubing. I’ve seen people use lighters and torches without any problem, but I imagine you could probably burn the tubing this way if you’re not careful.
Begins shrinking at 90°C.
Great tip,thx
What about the clear heatshrink with glue inside?
I haven’t tried it. I don’t see why it wouldn’t work. In some instances it might not provide any additional benefit (like over an adhesive label inside a control panel), while in other instances (say over a paper label that might be exposed to water) the adhesive might do a great job protecting the label. I’d have to experiment to know for sure.
Just get the heat shrink labels in the firt place and print directly onto the heatshrink
Thanks for the feedback, Derek. You’re right, if you’re doing this a lot it definitely makes sense to get the heat shrink labels. Unfortunately you generally need a more specialized (and more expensive) label maker to use the heat shrink labels. It makes sense to buy such a label maker if you do this a lot. A lot of people (like myself) already have a basic label maker (or a pen and a piece of paper) and only occasionally have a need for this type of label. In our case, having a little clear heat shrink tubing in the tool box is a good solution to an occasional problem.
Any part numbers for those please!!!
Check out the links in the video description.