If you are pulling wires to power your home outlets, labelling is not terribly important. Un-labelled panels are horrible to work on and make up most of the panel gore we see in the field. More than simply frustrating to work on, they can be a source of errors, especially when field electricians have to work out what the remote engineer was trying to suggest.
For your truck
If you are looking for a cheap printer and just getting started, check out the DYMO Industries Rhino 4200 or 5200. Neither were impressive nor horrible. You can do vinyl and heat shrink. The disposables are really where the price kicks in. The device is fairly rugged. The 5200 I had lasted six years, the 4200 was my co-workers and lasted about the same amount of time.
If you have the extra cash, or you simply do a lot of printing, go for the Brady 21+, 41 or 51. The main difference is the size of the text you can print. Brady has far more selections for the tape you can use. The self-laminating wraps work great on terminals that have already been landed. Crucially, it should make your less-nice panels at least feasible to troubleshoot.
For the office
If you are working on enough panels, you probably want a terminal printer and a large label printer for arc flash, warning and danger labels. You can also use them to cover flows or make QR codes (which I will hit on in a separate post).
Terminal printers
I use a lot of Weidmuller, so I started with the Weidmuller MCP plotter. This was a black hole that sucked in hours of my life and is also certainly responsible for my first gray hairs. Absolutely horrible, never seemed to work... I ended up buying felt pens and using them for a while.
However, I met a salesman who introduced me to the Cembre MG3. I like this one nearly as much as I loathe the plotter, which is saying something. It was roughly the same price (~$3,000 vs ~$2,500), took a whole thirty minutes to set up and always seems to work.
Clearly, you will need to do some homework if you are looking to buy. Specifically, terminal printers work with certain models and labels. Please check the literature and talk to a proper sales rep before you purchase!
Label printers
Your region determines which regulations you need to follow. In North America, and specifically the USA, there are lots of requirements for arc-flash, warning and danger panels. These require larger stickers, which means larger printers. This part is my hardest review.
As far as sheer flexibility goes, I have not beat the Brady i3300. You can do all the warning labels you need, plus really fast sets for wire-wraps. Note: I am working on large migrations of poorly documented systems, so I really purchased the i3300 for this purpose. 200-300 wire labels a day are no problems for this bad boy. Wonderful when paired with a spreadsheet.
However, it offers way too many options for someone unwilling to invest serious time into their labels. In this case, the better choice may be the DuraLabel Toro Max. It is a computer and printer, all wrapped in one. You can edit the graphics without any connection, except a mouse. My coworkers use it for arc-flash, warning and danger labels. It only does sheets but that is all they need.
While that ends the review portion, let's talk about ways to make you look better on the job.
If you know what tags you are going to need, the next day, set them up in a spreadsheet and print the night before. Toss them in a zip-lock bag the night before.
Choose models with a USB connection, so you can connect it to your laptop and use in the office, too. Spreadsheets are wonderful.
Manuals are never where you need them. If you store them online (perhaps on public DropBox folder), you can make a QR code link (like this). Take that link, put it on a 1"x1" sticker and put it inside your cabinets. Then, users can look them up with their cell phones.
SOPs are also never where you need them. If your company policy allows it, think about setting up a private YouTube channel. You can upload your videos, make QR codes from the links and stick them in your cabinets.
Good luck!
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