I have found a fairly simple and effective way of making custom labels - e.g. for marking/labelling Distribution Board. See example below

 

I designed the labels in Visio and then had it colour-printed onto an A4 self-adhesive paper label (glossy type).

I then laminated the whole printed label, including the peel-off label-backing. The lamination protects the label and gives it a hard-wearing finish.  

The printing cost about R11/page and the laminating about R13/page at my local "Wizards" print/copy shop. 

 

How do you attach them to the surface? Spray-on glue?

I printed this onto an A4 self-adhesive label sheet, so one just peels off the backing and it's ready to stick !  The lamination bonds to both the printed-side of the label and the peel-off backing. So one discards the back half of the label-lamination "sandwich" which exposes the sticky backing of the self-adhesive label.

Edited January 23, 20197 yr by NigelL

26 minutes ago, NigelL said:

The lamination bonds to both the printed-side of the label and the peel-off backing

Aaah that was the bit I didn't get. I actually have a laminator (my wife bought one for the kids' school stuff), as well as an inkjet printer*, so this is something I could well try. Although I did get a label set from @Jaco de Jongh some months ago.

* Inkjet printer. Well it is more like an Ink-tank printer. They are supposed to be the cheapest per page (they probably are), and it came with so much ink that the printer will likely break (at the rate I am going) before the ink is done. Why... because the wife insisted we must have colour capabilities. And from experience I know that colour lasers are just stupid, especially the cheaper ones. Black and white is a different matter. So we bought this thing, and then I noticed some other things, like the sponge pad on which it cleans its heads (when it is finished, you throw the printer away). If I do this again, I'm buying the 5k Laser...

2 hours ago, plonkster said:

If I do this again, I'm buying the 5k Laser...

You may do that only to see the Laser standing there, unused, as the pups grow up and Mom does less for them. See, at the early stages of school it is the Mom's "competing" under the guise of "teaching" the young one's how to do, "she" must have a colour printer see. 

Sat and watched it happening from the sidelines. Our inkjet is very old, still works. And when the Inkjet is not good enough ... much cheaper to take that project on a memory stick to a Postnet near you. 🙂 

Nigel's idea is simply brilliant.

Label printers much cheaper and convenient.

And more versatile...

13 hours ago, plonkster said:

* Inkjet printer. Well it is more like an Ink-tank printer. They are supposed to be the cheapest per page (they probably are), and it came with so much ink that the printer will likely break (at the rate I am going) before the ink is done. 

This was still probably a good buy. Most small Ink-Jet printers are really just a way to lock you into buying small, expensive ink cartridges. They heavily discount the printer hardware and then make all their profit from selling the cartridges...  Some manufacturers even put encrypted chips into the ink cartridge so that you cannot use generic replacements and cannot refill them.

12 hours ago, The Terrible Triplett said:

You may do that only to see the Laser standing there, unused

Oh, if I had a monochrome printer I know I'd use it. Have you ever seen that method where you print on glossy paper, iron it over onto a PCB and then etch the thing? The Toner (which is really a kind of plastic) doesn't fuse into the glossy paper, so it irons off onto the PCB easily and that covers your traces nicely when you etch it with FeCl.

(Somewhere I have a container with FeCl in it, bought in the 90s from an outfit known as SWACHEM, which I am pretty sure no longer exists seeing as SWA no longer exists).

12 hours ago, The Terrible Triplett said:

much cheaper to take that project on a memory stick

That was what I said too. But the ability to print your own plane tickets two hours before leaving for the airport and things like that remains awesome. So I still make my case for a good monochrome laser. And by good I mean something with decent Linux support, if possible something that supports postscript. And right there you already know why I'm going to buy the 5k printer... not because I need it... because I WANT it 🙂

Talking about plane ticket (man can I derail a thing). Last time I came back from Europe I told KLM to whatsapp the ticket. Sure enough, the PDF arrived and I completed the entire boarding procedure using my phone. Even "printing" your boarding pass is becoming stupid.

58 minutes ago, NigelL said:

This was still probably a good buy. Most small Ink-Jet printers are really just a way to lock you into buying small, expensive ink cartridges

Right. Which is why we want for the ink-tank printer. Epson seems to be doing a bit of a middle-finger thing with this line of printers... like a nod, we see what you other guys are doing... and we're doing something different, cause we can't compete with that ****.

1 hour ago, plonkster said:

 I completed the entire boarding procedure using my phone.

Ditto!!! Saw in Dec a lady checking in with the plane ticket scanned from the email on her phone. 🙂 

For local travel, I just have my drivers licence if I have not checked in online or at the airport fast check-in kiosk.

1 hour ago, plonkster said:

I WANT it

Absolutely no comeback on that! 😀

And one more OT mention of boarding passes... so I do some last minute shopping on Schiphol airport and as I pay for the items I am asked for my boarding pass. If the lady knew what I was thinking at that time: Yes, I drove all the way here past a bunch of other shops where I could have bought this, stood in line for 25 minutes and went through airport security, not to board a plane... no... I did that all for the sole reason of coming here to buy stuff!

(Yeah I know there's probably a law about this, but it remains stupid).

On 2019/01/23 at 9:15 PM, The Terrible Triplett said:

You may do that only to see the Laser standing there, unused, as the pups grow up and Mom does less for them. See, at the early stages of school it is the Mom's "competing" under the guise of "teaching" the young one's how to do, "she" must have a colour printer see. 

Sat and watched it happening from the sidelines. Our inkjet is very old, still works. And when the Inkjet is not good enough ... much cheaper to take that project on a memory stick to a Postnet near you. 🙂 

Nigel's idea is simply brilliant.

My 3K laserjet (it was marked down, end of line) has been operating very well for the past 4 years. Probably cause my wife has a home-based office. But after having to try help my mom "fix" her inkjet, I brought her a laserjet as well (albeit a B/W) and she never needs to worry about dried up ink tanks again.

3 hours ago, SilverNodashi said:

... dried up ink tanks again.

And when I print something, say maybe 5 times a year, the bloody ink is finished. 

6 minutes ago, The Terrible Triplett said:

And when I print something, say maybe 5 times a year, the bloody ink is finished. 

That is one problem with the inktank printer. It is more resistant to drying up than cartridge printers, sure, but the heads still get clogged and it prints all spotty. Now there is a head cleaning function you can run (need to install the windows software for that... which in itself takes 40 minutes), but it also comes with a warning: That it wears out those head cleaning sponges faster. So what I do instead is print a bunch of dark coloured pictures.

So I suppose that as a review of the Epson L365 (and derivatives).... I have to say... not unimpressed, but also not super-impressed either. You kinda sorta have to print a lot to keep the ink flowing. In fact I print things in colour not because I need to... but because I have to!

What I really want is  an early 90s Laserjet 4P... or maybe even the 4000. Preferably with the network interface since parallel ports are now extinct. Those things were battle tanks. And when the fuser unit and rollers got worn, you bought a kit and serviced it yourself. Of course this printer has been discontinued.

On 2019/01/23 at 8:50 AM, NigelL said:

I have found a fairly simple and effective way of making custom labels - e.g. for marking/labelling Distribution Board. See example below

 

I designed the labels in Visio and then had it colour-printed onto an A4 self-adhesive paper label (glossy type).

I then laminated the whole printed label, including the peel-off label-backing. The lamination protects the label and gives it a hard-wearing finish.  

The printing cost about R11/page and the laminating about R13/page at my local "Wizards" print/copy shop. 

 

Any more pictures of other labels on your system.

G