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Comment by notpushkin | Hacker News Reader

Heatshrink?

Heatshrink is great if you're making cables but you would need a really high shrinkage ratio to fit over the connector and then shrink enough, the common cheap stuff is usually 2:1, maybe 3:1.

You could cut the heatshrink tube, wrap it around the cable and then secure it with transparent tape. It would slide around but at least it wouldn't leave residue on the cable.

Maybe clip-on cable markers like this? [1] Easy to 3D print if you're so inclined.

[1] https://uk.farnell.com/multicomp-pro/pb-250-sm0c/cable-marke...

I’ve thought about just putting it on the connector itself. It may look stupid though.

Brother label printers (and I assume others) can print text small enough and sharp enough to fit onto USB connectors. (You'll need to manually trim the label with scissors to fit of course)

Visually, if it's something I'm going to be staring at on a daily basis, I like this much better than having tags hanging off of the cable. Tip: consider white-on-black labels.

The labels have been plenty durable in my experience, but if you need extra durability, you could probably just brush some lacquer over it with a Q-tip.

Man, I really need to get a label printer. There’s been a whole bunch of stuff I’d like to label already, but I’ve had no idea you could also change the font.

The Brother label printers are great. No authentication chips on the tape cartridges, so you can use cheap 3rd-party ones. I sometimes feel like Brother is the last company selling consumer-friendly printers.

One big differentiator between various Brother models that's not immediately obvious is the tape sizes they accept. The cheaper models don't accept the fatter 24mm/1" labels, gotta step up to the $99ish models for that.

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