How to label wires for sound/video system
 

As mentioned before, I'm moving soon & I'll need to hook up my TV, VCR, DVD/CD player and power amp (radio & separate speakers too) all back together when I land on my feet in another state. Obviously I want to hook it all up correctly when that time comes. Ideally the TV is supposed to use my boston speakers as well and the TV speakers. I was thinking of colored coding little sticky dots. Seems a bit too artsy and questionable though perhaps.

Any good methods from those of you who know the best methods for almost anything?

Wrap a little masking tape flags around each end of the cable, and handwrite the name of the component on the far end of the cable. That way, when you look at the back of your tuner, you can see at a glance where the CATV comes in, where the DVD comes in, which speaker wire goes where....

i use 2 systems of labeling cables. the first is to use the printed label maker to make tags which fit nicely lengthwise on the cable and then wrap a band of clear packing tape over them for longevity. looks really professional because its typed and looks laminated / heatshrinked even tho its just packing tape.

second method is colored electrical tape. can cut the tape in thin slices and wrap several bands around to make stripes... like ||| sorta.

I generally use the electrical tape method on heavy duty cables, like antenna feedlines (gogo ham radio operator with lots of antennae) and the printed labels go on prettymuch everything else.

If you go to some place like radioshack they sell preprinted packs of labels for around $2-$3. It comes with enough to label each end of a wire plus the jack it goes into with every letter and numbers 1-10.

Ok, after a search of their site it looks like they don't make them anymore. But they do have self-laminating labels like this Laminated Tags

Go buy a labelmaker. For about $20, you can make your own labels for everything. I've got one and I can't believe how handy it is.

Thanks y'all!

Sometimes stress makes it hard for some of us (i.e. me!!!) to simplify to the basics and your posts have been extremely helpful.

There's nothing like good old masking tape and a pen. I've also made up diagrams for what goes where and tape it in a zip lock bag to the back of one of the units.

I never even thought about doing that, and I kinda wish now that I would have. Altho, I have unhooked and rehooked it so many times its natural now, it definetly would have helped a few years ago before the rats nest really took shape. The labelmaker is a good idea, I guess I have a little project to work on now haha.
http://img178.imageshack.us/img178/5...e0025ms.th.jpg

Yikes.

Electrical supply houses sell flip cards with alpha and numeric tabs-one manufacturer is Ideal. Another option is nylon ty-wraps with label tags. You can buy them in multicolored bundles. I typically use a 3M dispenser which has a white field for data and a clear overlay piece of tape-I purchase them from the local supply house.

masking tape + pen. Easiest, cheapest.