Easy Systainer Labels

[MMCO]

I have been focused on getting organized lately and finally got around to building cabinets for my Systainers. I then needed to label each one clearly. I found a member's video about a label system you can buy and print cards, however it required a specialized Canon printer. The results were amazing, but I didn't want to buy another large printer.

I decided to buy the systainer label kits that are $10 each for 10 labels. You get card stock that is pre-cut and clear covers. It uses an A4 size, if memory serves, and that is larger than my printer would accommodate. I formatted all the labels with the software from systainer and emailed them to Kinko's. They tried many sample prints and eventually used my precut systainer sheet and it printed off center on both directions. $10 bucks wasted and an hour of my time.

Frustrated, I decided to buy a Dymo 550 thermal printer, $77 refurbished on Amazon. You can get different size labels that have adhesive backs. I was able to print over a hundred labels in an hour using different sizes and find it makes reading them very easy from a distance. I wanted to pass this along in case others were looking for a fairly simple and inexpensive way to label their systainers.

 

[Hawkeye0001]

There's this old thread in the FOG that holds tons of custom label templates for a whole bunch of tools. Because printing on PVC cards with a Dymo card printer or special ink jet tray seemed as expensive as cumbersome I opted for a 100 pack of blank PVC key cards (non-printable ones are enough for this) and a few A4 sheets of labels (80x50mm, self adhesive polyster labels) - and designed and printed away in batches of 10 per sheet on my color laser printer and stuck them on the PVC cards, that way they also cope with water. You can make them look like the original labels or just as easily do custom stuff.

 

[Cheese]

Not wanting to purchase a second printer for the sole purpose of printing PVC labeled cards, I also started with using Festool's labeling kit, 497855. However, after 60+ labels (I'm a slow learner) I noticed that the Festool plastic covers placed over the card stock, obfuscated/blurred the printing on the card stock, sometimes making the reading of the label difficult from a distance. Wishing to find an easier to read solution, I decided to print labels and adhere them directly to the PVC cards. That has really worked well.

The labels I use are "weatherproof" labels, whatever that means, from onlinelabels, but if they get soiled, they do clean up nicely with no smearing of ink. They also offer removable labels that work well on the newer SYS3 Systainers that don't offer card slots on the sides of the Systainers (Festool...what were you thinking?).

 

[anthonymall]

There's this old thread in the FOG that holds tons of custom label templates for a whole bunch of tools. Because printing on PVC cards with a Dymo card printer or special ink jet tray seemed as expensive as cumbersome I opted for a 100 pack of blank PVC key cards (non-printable ones are enough for this) and a few A4 sheets of labels (80x50mm, self adhesive polyster labels) - and designed and printed away in batches of 10 per sheet on my color laser printer and stuck them on the PVC cards, that way they also cope with water. You can make them look like the original labels or just as easily do custom stuff.

These look awesome. Exactly what I’m thinking of. I don’t really think that printing inkjet on pvc cards is a novel idea. Color laser is the way to go. What program are you using to modify the template on the FT site? I have a ton of FT tools that aren’t even available to download the info or picture so I’ll have to source my own.

 

[peter halle]

I've used color laser (I don't own a color inkjet) on weatherproof labels from onlinelbels.com for years primarily to replace the old Festool labels that fell off with regularity. I haven't used them with the newest versions of the systainer.

Peter

 

[Allano]

I bought a cheap Chinese label printer and some 50x80mm labels. They fit perfectly on the credit card sized plastic cards in the Systainers.

Together with the description, I print a QR code on each label. The QR activates a shortcut on my phone, which leads me to a menu where I can either take photos of the contents or see the photos I already took of that box. So if a box is in the bottom of a stack, and I can't remember the contents, I can just take my phone, point the camera at the QR code and see the photos of the contents.

Works quite well, but I am about to abandon it, because:

I recently discovered that similar white plastic cards can bought with programmable NFC chips built in. I have ordered some and received them, but have only got around to verifying that my phone can communicate with them. My plan is to use these as backing for my labels instead of the white Festool plastic cards. Then I hope to be able to open my phone shortcut, just by holding the phone near to the card on the box.