Day 66, My Brother PT-65 Labelmaker
As I finished soldering up the limit switches on the CNC router project today, I began the task of wire routing. I am not good at this, but one thing that I've been trying to do when doing other bits of wiring is to label the bits of wire so I know what connects to what. And for that, I'm using my old but trust Brother PT-65 "Electronic Labeling System".
I use it enough that I have built a custom holder to keep it on my French cleat wall. I epoxied a piece of metal to the back of it, and a magnet to the holder, so it stays upright and accessible.
This model is no longer manufactured, but you can find them on Ebay fairly easier for somewhere between twenty and thirty dollars. It's a fairly bare bones item, but it can make five different sizes and several styles. I use it with .47" white tape, and it does a lot of labeling tasks for me around the shop.
It uses "Brother M Tape" style tape, which is still available. Last time I needed some, I got some offlabel tape made bi "Fimax" whichi is compatible, but which was not very sticky: many of the plastic surfaces that I attached it to seem to fall off over time. I decided to go ahead and order some real Brother branded tape today to see if that is better, and will update this post if I find that it's better.
I do find that there are two things that I wish it could do:
- It would be great if it could print labels of a fixed width, say, to go over the RJ45 outlets in a network switch.
- I wish it had a mode that could print labels that could serve as tags for a network cable, either by wrapping around the cable, printing a label multiple times, or by printing a length it as a tag (so-called "cable wrap" and "cable tag" formats).
I've had good luck with the Brother brand (I've owned two different laser printers made by Brother, each which lasted over a decade) and would probably consider getting another. The PTH-111 appears to be good, affordable buy. I've been pondering picking one up, but frankly my aging PT-65 still does most of the job. That being said, my wife has given me dispensation to update my label maker if I give the existing one to her as a hand me down.
If I were a real network engineer, I'd consider getting a Brady. They make some really cool label makers which can do things like print UPC and QR codes, but come with a price which is hard to justify.
If you have a label maker that you use for hobby/electronics labeling that you particularly like, feel free to mail me your recommendation.
Hope you all survived hump day.