How to mark the cap of a fixture?

Ravenbar

Active Member
Yearly I do the lighting to the local HS musical. As part of that, I fix whatever broken lights I can and do basic maintenance. One of the issues we've repeatedly run into is lamp sockets going bad.

I'd like to mark the fixture caps as to if/when I've replaced the socket. Marking the yoke won't do anything as the caps get swapped around from unused fixtures to broke fixtures being used.

In the past, I've put colored electric tape on the whip, but that doesn't say when it was changed, just that it was changed.
 
Yearly I do the lighting to the local HS musical. As part of that, I fix whatever broken lights I can and do basic maintenance. One of the issues we've repeatedly run into is lamp sockets going bad.

I'd like to mark the fixture caps as to if/when I've replaced the socket. Marking the yoke won't do anything as the caps get swapped around from unused fixtures to broke fixtures being used.

In the past, I've put colored electric tape on the whip, but that doesn't say when it was changed, just that it was changed.
@Ravenbar Can I assume your query is: How should I label them? Variables; how much surface area is available on your caps for legible printing and how hot do your caps get?? Possibilities: Paint pens; from memory the brand was Marks All which were sold in a wide variety of colors and dispensed real paint thinned sufficiently to flow through a porous felt tip. Some folks swore by silver Sharpies but I don't believe they stood up well to heat and handling. I often used white plastic electrical tape by pulling off a length a bit longer than twice what I wanted; keeping it straight and tangle free, draping it over the whip and laying it back on itself with the sticky sides stuck neatly to one another leaving me the front and back sides to write my epistle with the indelible marking pen of my choice. This worked well for me in my days playing head LX. When dealing with rental gear, I've often used white plastic LX tape as described to write notes back to Christies. If / when I've found serious damage such as Socapex / Veam cables with cuts clear through to the copper and / or annoying problems such as Socapex inserts spun in relation to the rotational keying of their housings, I've often used red plastic LX tape and applied two identical notes flagging either side of the damaged area for redundancy plus called my Christie's rep', explained the problem and warned them to watch for my flags upon the return of my rental gear. Most often I was not involved with the transit neither fro' nor to Christies. If the tape flags stood up for the duration and return of the rentals they ought to stand up for you in your venue.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard
 
I often used white plastic electrical tape by pulling off a length a bit longer than twice what I wanted; keeping it straight and tangle free, draping it over the whip and laying it back on itself with the sticky sides stuck neatly to one another leaving me the front and back sides to write my epistle with the indelible marking pen of my choice.

This is probably your easiest fix. I would agree that the bases might get to hot to hold info, and not sure I would want to write non-permanent information into on the actual instrument in a permanent way anyway. You could buy some numbered wire tape to label year and month on the cable as well.
 
Zip tie tags on the whips
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White Gaffers Tape and a Sharpy? Fold a section around the whip and onto itself as a flat surface/label area? Then, you can tear it off and put a new one on when you replace it.
 

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