# Patch Bay Label Plates



## Fatcatpro (May 15, 2011)

I'm going to be redoing our patch bay and what is on the patch bay now are these plates with engravings on them.

I'm wondering if anyone knows where I can buy just the silver (u channel like) paper holders to double sided stick tape to the patch bay that I could print out a strip of paper with the labels.
Thanks,
Addison


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## FMEng (May 15, 2011)

You'd have to know the make and series of the patch bay. ADC, Bittree, etc., then contact the manufacturer directly.

I always found getting the spacing right hard to do on paper. It's much less frustrating to use a Brother P-Touch machine to make labels.


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## MNicolai (May 16, 2011)

If you want them to be engraved, any local trophy shop should be able to handle this if you give them the dimensions of labels, desired text, and such.

Otherwise some handy work with a label maker is probably cheaper and easier. My Rhino 3000 kit cost me $100 and has been worth its weight in gold making labels for our consoles, wires, LCD monitors, flash drives, tools, winch controls, folders in our gel inventory, and even it prints on heat-shrink tubing for labeling wires.


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## museav (May 16, 2011)

FMEng said:


> I always found getting the spacing right hard to do on paper. It's much less frustrating to use a Brother P-Touch machine to make labels.


I've found it pretty easy to address patchbay labels in CAD, but I've also been doing bay labels that way for years. When I was in the contracting world we would lay patchbay labels out in AutoCAD, print them and laminate them, that not only made them more durable, it also made them fit more tightly in the label 'rails'. We'd also provide the related CAD file to the Owner so they could make modifications to the labeling and create new labels if anything in the system changed. With a color printer this approach also lets you implement color coding in the labeling, I'll sometimes even go as far as using colors on the labeling with matching colored patch cords (red, blue, green, black, etc.) as fits the application.

Engraved labels can be a good option but make sure to check the spelling you send and the spelling you get back. There is a system out there with a bunch of 'Spech Mixer', 'Spech Amplifier', etc. labels because the engraver apparently decided that "Speech" needed to be spelled differently and we didn't notice it until the last minute while working on a project out of town, so we had to go with what we had until we could get new labels, which I don't think ever got installed. 

Trying to make a single, continuous P-Touch or similar label for the bay, much less having everything line up, is just about impossible, so you end up with multiple small labels that can be difficult to line up and in my experience tend to have corners peel and get pulled off. In fact, while my specifications allow such labeling for some things, it is generally specifically not permitted for patchbays.


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## tomed101 (May 17, 2011)

For Patch Bays, I would recommend using a Dymo Rhino labeller. These machines are designed specifically for industrial applications and have tools which let you design patch bay lables that will line up. The website is here.


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## MNicolai (May 17, 2011)

tomed101 said:


> For Patch Bays, I would recommend using a Dymo Rhino labeller. These machines are designed specifically for industrial applications and have tools which let you design patch bay lables that will line up. The website is here.


 
I would side with museav on this given his points on spacing, lining up labels, and having labels that will last for possibly decades; if getting everything to line up precisely is a concern, outsource the labeling. I'm not familiar with the features of each Rhino-series labeler, but I do know that the only ones you can design labels with on your computer and print via the device are in the $200+ range, which is not a practical price point if you'll only need to use the labeler once for labels that need to line up and be spaced exactly. For someone who probably won't be labeling patch bays every couple weeks, it's really not worth the extra $100 over a labeler that works for everything else just so you can have one that gets your labels carefully lined up for the one task you'll need labels lined up precisely for.


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## tomed101 (May 21, 2011)

Absolutly. For a one-off job, there is no way that the Rhino machines would be the best choice. My reasoning for getting one myself was that they can do everything a regular machine can do, as well as the patch bays and (probably one of the best features for me) print on heat-shrink tube, which is great for ID'ing leads.


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## jstroming (May 21, 2011)

I have bought hundreds of these for all my audio/video patch panels the past few years:

Redco Audio - Custom Audio Cables - Recording Studio Supplies - Custom A/V Panels - DP Connector Custom Labeling Plates

They are awesome and dirt cheap (like $2 a plate). Plus their turnaround time including shipping is like 2 days to me (New York City). Definitely alot more pro than the P-Touch or Rhino labels, which we've all used in the past.


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