I’ve tried that printer. Makes very nice labels.. but… there’s
a lot of waste. My experience was it took 1- 1.25 inches to make even a brief
label. Further the cartridges only hold 5 feet of label stock for heat
shrink. And cost from 25 to 31 bux each (depending on size of wire) It ended
up costing about 55 cents for each label. Probably not too bad if you’re doing
a VFR panel but a dual navcom IFR setup with remote channeling DME – well, could
get pretty pricey at over a buck a wire just to label them. Of course, after
blowing a wad on all that radio gear, penny-pinching on labels doesn’t make
much sense.
I’ve been using the Brady TLS2200 labeler for close to 10 years
(I make medical robots for a living). Labels run about 30 cents each and My experience
been that they are much better print and durability. Of course, the printer isn’t
free (they run around 400 bux on ebay)… printing on heat-shrink wire labels
just isn’t cheap. Sure looks nice though.
The kids at the high school engineering program that I mentor
used an inexpensive drug store labeler to do the label/clear heat shrink
method. The labels were not thermal so I guess they were some sort of transfer
type. The result was *very* nice and much less expensive. Took a little
more time but, I guess the ultimate savings really depends on how much you
charge yourself for labor J
You should see the 3-axis Cartesian robot they made, and used
for (among other things) engraving data plates… sweet J
SNIP