Label Your Effect Wall Warts

The external power supplies known affectionately as “wall warts” are a necessary evil of modern gadget life. Sometimes these strip dwellers are generic little blocks with no helpful writing on them. So you can make your life a whole lot easier by doing something very simple the minute you unpack one from the box: label it. Use masking tape and a Sharpie, a label maker, or even a wax pencil, but write the name of the gear it powers in big letters, right on the side. I even list the polarity for all my DC units (AC doesn’t have polarity, or, more correctly, it alternates @60 times per second), in case I need to swap one out. Because the specs are sometimes listed in one place only (the power supply, the back panel, the manual) and nowhere else, it’s best to do this as soon as the gear arrives. -Jon Chappell