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What are you guys using to mark cables per length etc.........I've used various colors of electrical or duct tape but it eventually turns into a gooey mess. Tired of cleaning them up and re-taping them.
I just got pissed off and bought all 25' cables so no need to mark different lengths - life is MUCH easier now smile.png . I do have a few 10' XLR and 5' Speakon cables but those are easy to discern. Those SpeakOn couplers are a bit of a PITA but easier than managing mixed in 50 footers smile.png . I was able to cut down the 50' XLR and SpeakOns I had but ended up with a bunch of most-always-too-short 20' XLR's - I'll cut some of those down to 10 footers as I'm always looking for a couple more than I have...
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For XLR I use colored rings like these:

 

http://www.neutrik.us/en-us/xlr/xlr-cable-connector-accessories/xxr

 

Here's my length color code:

 

Black: Under 10ft. or 100ft.

Brown: 10ft.

Blue: 15ft. (because I don't have any 60ft. cables)

Red: 20ft.

Purple: 25ft. (because I don't have any 70ft. cables)

Orange: 30ft.

Yellow: 40ft.

Green: 50ft.

White: Specialty cables

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Well I'm dealing with 5-10-25-50 and 100. The 50 and 100 are easy enough but looking into a case of wires, it's easier to just look for color coded ends among the snake den of black. I also have various specialty cables I've made for my BagEnd Crystals as they are wired 2+- and I don't run 4 conductor cable for anything. Those are in 5' and 10' varieties so coding helps immensly especially when I have a new guy go fetch a cable.

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All of my cables no matter what type, AC, XLR, DMX, etc., are color coded using 1/2" gaffers tape.

 

Blue for 5' and 50'

Red for 10' and 100'

Yellow for 25' and 75'

 

 

Thanks Bill, I didn't know you could get gaff tape in colors ? Enroute from Ebay as we speak.

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Except for my cables in racks, I now only carry 25' and 50', whether that's XLR or speaker. As others have said, there's no need to mark them. I do have about ten 15' cables that have been collecting dust for a few years now - haven't missed them at all.

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I've always just used the good quality 3M electrical tape. When I was the house guy at a club here several years ago I replaced all the xlr cables with new ones from Audiopile. All cable under 25ft got White tape, All 25's for Red tape. All 50's got Blue tape. Then I numbered each color 1 - xx. I also always labeled both ends. If the tape started to come off or feel like it was getting gooey I'd pull it off and clean the end real quick with a little alcohol

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My cables have a label covered with transparent heat-shrink to hold it in place. Doesn't fall apart and stops your cables walking away, for the most part.

 

The labels have two colored bands (red for 10', yellow for 25', purple for 50', black for 100') as well as company name and website.

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and stops your cables walking away, for the most part.

 

Reminds me of a story:

 

Back in the late '70's I was working my way through college working evenings and weekends in an autobody shop. The shop employed a mechanic, as well as a herd of bodymen. The mechanic had a very large Snap-on toolbox pile all loaded with Snap-on tools... probably $25K+ worth in 1970's dollars. One Saturday morning, I guess he'd had enough of tracking down his missing/ borrowed tools, and he'd had enough of locking the multiple portions of his tool boxes whenever he wasn't going to be standing right in-front of his toolbox pile... so he walked into the paint mix room, mixed up a pint of alert orange paint in a Sharp 75 paintgun... then calmly & methodically walked out to his tool box pile, and one by one, slid each drawer open and hosed down the contents. That did stop his tools from walking away, for the most part.

 

On a similar note: A few years ago I bought a pallet pile of 6-4 SO power distro cabling at an auction. Seems some previous owner had employed the same method for "cable ID" as all the cables were sporting randomly splotched alert orange and green paint... what I referred to as an "anti-camo paint job".

 

 

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Back in my bicycle shop days, besides initials engraved in all the tools, everybody had a unique color of tape. We all had the same specialty tools (Campagnolo, VAR, etc), but you could always spot yours vs somebody elses. To this day, my tools all sport dark green tape. Most of my audio gear does, too. Mark C.

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I use three of these http://www.homedepot.com/p/HDX-16-3-150-ft-Cord-Storage-Reel-with-Stand-CE-100PDQ/100028177 for my mic/xlr cables. One has six 50' cables and the other two have a bunch of 25/30' cables. I use a white "paint pen" and mark the male connector of each cable with its specific length (25,30,50). This way the length marking is not noticeable on the "mic side". The first cable on the reel goes "female end first" to expose the indicated cable length at the end.

 

I just put out the reels and peel-off what specific lengths I need. This makes setup very efficient for me. At the end of a gig I disconnect the mics and disconnect at the snake's stagebox and wind them up. If there are two of us breaking down the rig, one can wind while the other keeps attaching cables to the end. This makes things super fast. If the cables are soiled, (beer, excessive dust, etc.), I hand wind them and clean them upon my return to the shop and put them back on the reels.

 

I use three of these: http://www.homedepot.com/p/HDX-150-ft-16-3-Cord-Storage-Reel-HD-130PDQ/205038360 , one for each of my two 250" xlr cables and one for my "five cable loom".. These are not as sturdy as the other reel and will crack if carelessly handled but they do the job.

 

Mike M

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