A reoccurring question that I’ve had in my mind for quite some time was simply how to go about labeling all the wires in the Long-EZ to make maintenance, modifications and troubleshooting a heck of a lot easier. Well, recently–most likely due to my recent task of building all the subsystem wiring book diagrams–that internal “reoccurring” question turned more into a “nagging” question.
So the other day I spent a couple of hours perusing my notes, past emails, various builders’ forums and the Internet to find an answer to my now persistent wire-labeling question. After a fair amount of research, and doing a short cost-benefit analysis of the amount of time required to label my wires in one of the few old school methods versus acquiring the capability to do it quickly, I realized that having high quality labeled wires wasn’t going to be necessarily cheap. However, along with high quality labels the one thing I could definitely attain was speed . . . and once you add the ability to produce things a heck of a lot more quickly, with high quality, that simply equates to efficiency in my book. And I am willing to pay for efficiency.
I found a few builders using the K-Sun Bee3-EZ+ label maker (Really?! How can you pass on something that is clearly made for an “EZ”? It even lists it right in the model number! And it’s EZ to use to boot!). Now, I already have a P-Touch label maker that I’ve used for countless years, so why in the world do I need another label maker?! Well, dear friends, this one PRINTS ON SHRINK TUBE! Ok, this may not be news to you, but it definitely was to me. Between the 1/8″ & 3/16″ sized shrink tubes, they cover wire gages from 12-22 AWG. Perfect for covering the vast majority of wires in an airplane build. Moreover, these shrink tubes come in 5 different color combos.
Thus, after reading online reviews, comparing prices, etc., I went back to my old standby eBay and was able to pick up a new K-Sun Bee3-EZ+ shrink tube label maker for over half the cost less of a new one at a regular online vendor: