Sliding Dovetail Cable Label

A Cable Label designed to attach firmly and not move or fall off while the cable is in use. Designed with a focus on labeling in place cables being regularly plugged into laptops, say in a conference room.

Fits 12 mm wide labels that are up to 40 mm long by default.

I wanted something wide enough to fit a 12 mm label for easy viewing and simply wrapping the label on the cable does not prove visible enough in my experience. I also wanted to label to not move around on the cable or fall off once installed.

This design uses a sliding dovetail design to hold the two halves together. Two foam inserts provide some flexibility on the cable size accommodated. It latches on the end with a couple small nubs. Combined with the friction from the cable being pressed up by the foam inserts the two halves stay together quite securely and do not easily slide on the cable.

Installation Instructions

• Insert the cable into the bottom side on top of the foam inserts

• Find the sides on the body that have the indents on them, this indicated which side has the latching nubs.

• Slide the dovetails together starting on the bottom side without the nubs

  • Once slid together the nubs should end up on the same end

• Pressing the two halves together while sliding (compressing the foam inserts) allows it to slide easier.

• It can take a bit of force to slide them together depending on the cable. If the cable is too large it will not go together at all.

• To remove, simply side them back apart the way they went on.

Parts and Print Settings

Top and bottom halves

• Print at 0.1 mm layer height

• 2 perimeters is plenty

• Prints with a 0.4 mm nozzle just fine, do not go any larger though as many of the features are quite small

• PLA, PETG or any regular materials will work just fine

Foam Inserts (Optional)

• I printed these with ColorFabb VarioShore TPU though any foaming flexible filament would work

  • With some careful cutting you could likely make something from craft foam or something as well that would work just fine

• These are just intended to provide some tension of the cable to keep it secure and from sliding. If that is not a worry they can be skipped. Depending on how tight the cable fits you could still get a quite secure fit

Multiple sizes available to fit most cables are provided. If you want to customize it further the Fusion file and step file are available. In Fusion it is parameterized to make it easy to adjust the common things you want to adjust easily (Modify>Change Parameters to access within Fusion).