Labeling Fail

[ItsMeBobO]

18 labels in all these coiled wires.   Every one written in sharpie and washed out over the summer.   They must have gotten wet.     The guy wires run between the trees to hold up my house sized horizontal arch. 

So far I have three up.  Slowed by need to unwrap them to see if they are the correct size for the spot. 

 

[TheDucks]

I think it is more than just getting wet.  I was in my Media Center Panel (Voice, data, Video AKA Antenna) chasing down poor signal to a TV. All the plastic Flag zip ties that I had marked with 'where', had faded . This is indoors , at a fairly constant temperature and it still aged.  IMHO All this 'environmentally friendly formulation' does not last, and you end up using 3 to 4 times more over time to achieve equal results.

We may have to go all the way back in time, to when they used embossed metal tags ?  (I still have Metal Number dies and a ball-peen)

[Orville]

I actually bought a cheap laminator, business card sized lamination sheets, business card stock, and then  I laminate the info printed on the business card, either handwritten or printer {don't currently have one, so handwritten for the time being now}. 

But these tags have lasted me for years both indoors and outside, if the lamination is sealed correctly, nothing inside gets wet, it may fade, but it takes 4+ years for it to fade out.  

Had a laminated sign on my back door that told delivery guys to leave items at my front door and ring the doorbell, so we'd know a delivery had been made, that sign lasted just a little over 6 years before I needed to replace it. 

And this sign was in DIRECT SUN for over 8-10 hours a day, in wet rainy weather, high winds {it was mounted to the door {pre-cut holes for mounting on door, or a single hole for zip ties in the business card lamination sheets}. 

This worked out very well for me.   Yes.it's a little added cost, work and it may be noticeable on some things, but I don't have to keep re-writing things year after year because of weather fading my info on cords that go to the same item every year.

Only exception to this is my CTB16PC Controllers, I still label the dangles for each channel output on the female end of each one with a silver sharpie, but I usually don't have to re-mark them for 3+ or so years.