by Len Buffinton
I remember the day like it was yesterday, the sun was beating down, the wind was calm and the air was thick. Ahhh, another nice August day in New England. I was at the club field of the Silent Knights Soaring (SKSS) in Newark DE when I spotted it. “The perfect radio installation”. There it was, glowing like a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. Peering into the fuselage, you could see where everything plugged in, where all the wires were running, all the leads were in line, tied together and even professionally labeled. WOW.
OK, I know you are probably wondering why I got so excited about the wiring in a fuselage? Once the cockpit is put together you will never see it, right? It all comes down to organization. When you begin to get into the larger scale sailplanes, 5 meter and up, besides the wing span going up, the servo count starts to go up too. I was just starting construction of a 10.6 meter Nimbus with 20 servos and 200 feet of wiring. Keeping track of what servo plugs into where, what lead goes to the switch, the voltage reg, the two battery packs, etc, was going to be a problem.
This problem was quickly solved with the Dymo Rhino 5200 Professional Heat Shrink Tubing Printer and Label Writer
Wire before getting tied up
Two elevator connections/ Nimbus
Complete package including the charger and some supplies
This slick little device will make you look like a pro in seconds. The versatility of the printer allows you to print on shrink tubing, vinyl tabs and nylon tape.
Using this printer is very straight forward, simply insert the cartridge into the compartment in the back of the machine with whatever “medium” you wish to print on. Choose the style of printing you want, type in the words you wish to see and push print. The label spits out the top side ready to use, just slide down the cut bar to separate it from the roll and print another one.
I used a bunch of heat shrink tube labels. Since I was making my own leads, I would label them before I crimped on the connector. The tube they supply shrinks very tight to the wire. I was using 3/8 shrink tube and putting it over heavy duty twisted servo wire. I later discovered if you use the 1/2″ shrink tube, you can get it to go over a connector, and STILL shrink tight on the wire.
When it came to labeling battery packs and trays, I used the vinyl tape. Again, a simple process. Just change out the cartridge and go for it.
The unit is very reasonably priced,( about $150 for the printer) and I know there are many others out there that are much less expensive, but I plan to have this one for quite a while. I highly recomend it. Mine was purchased from Buy heat shrink.com , Fast delivery, 2 days, and they had everything I needed in stock.
