New Circuit Labels for the Breaker Panel

After 28 years the circuit labels on Nellie D. 37VT63's breaker panel were looking rather sad. Because the breakers were repurposed over the years (to support things that didn't exist in 1987--like MFDs, routers, NMEA 2000 bus, etc) the breaker's labels became a patchwork of different colors, fonts and sizes. They were, in a word, unattractive.

A neat solution is to have a trophy shop laser etch new, black plastic labels for the breaker panel. And, rather than have them do individual placards for each breaker, one big placard can service an entire column of breakers. This gives a much more integrated look.

Three placards are needed, one AC and two DC. Here's the measured diagram for the AC circuit. The placard's outside dimension was chosen as it covers all traces of the old breaker labels. To make the new label easier to read a single line of all capital letters was specified. The trophy shop determined the proper font size, which was used for all three placards, by fitting the longest label, FLOOR LIGHTS WHITE, in the given space. Affixing the placards was a breeze using the provided, double sided, sticky tape. At $5/placard this project is not only effective it's affordable.

Hat tip to Jay a Sterling, Cruz-In 37VT74, for coming up with this idea.

Dave Howell
Nellie D.