Ability Laminator 1600 plus

[Nick Monir]

Hi Dan,

We bought this about a year ago and haven’t had any problems at all. Does exactly what we want it to do and has never let us down. Initially we had some problems with material being pulled off to one side and, on some occasions, wrinkles in the laminate. It turned out to be the top roller being slightly out of alignment and a quick adjustment solved the problem. Other than that it has been fantastic.

Nick.

[Stepen Wood]

I totally agree, bought this at the sign show and have been seriously impressed.
Very basic in controls and setup but effective because of this.

Cheers Stephen

[Dan Osterbery]

Hi guys,
Happy New year! thanks for your input, bought the machine and it is on its way to spain – went for the 1600 plus in the end, and cant wait for it to get here so we can start playing with it!!

Any top tips??? On the machine or which laminate you use with it??

Cheers

Dan

[Stepen Wood]

The machine is so simple to use you can give somebody a quick demo and they could lam 50m straight on there first attempt.

The only thing I would say is, you must leave at least 150mm at the start of your print blank for setup.

We have tried all sorts of laminate on it and never had a problem with any.

Cheers Stephen

[Dan Osterbery]

hi guys,
quick question, our laminator has just arrived and when we opened the crate it is a typhoon 1600 plus? All the blurb I was given was for a ability 1600 plus?? How is yours branded?? I am just about to phone the supplier but just thought I would ask first??

thanks

Dan

[Stepen Wood]

Ours is a typhoon 1600 too.

Same machine

Cheers Stephen

[Dan Osterbery]

thanks stephen!

[Martin Oxenham]

Ability is a name that Europoint add to a lot of their products.

[Dan Osterbery]

Hi guys,
can you help please, we are getting some weird noises and results from our laminator and we have tried phoning the supplier and they are not really coming up with anything that’s helping!!

If you are facing the machine, and you go to the left hand end, please can you measure the distance away from the two black knobs/tensioners to the machine? We are laminating a 80mc thick gloss laminate, at low speed and 60ºc temp.

The problem we are having is the front mandrel that takes up the backing paper is jamming and therefor leaving pressure lines though out whatever is being laminated.

It appears to make no difference whether it has tension or not applied to it, so what I wanted to do was get a rough setting from someone else’s machine.

If this is as clear as mud, ill pop a foto somwehere else so you can see what I mean.

any help appreciated

Desperate Dan

[Stuart Taylor]

Hi Dan

I don’t know the Ability Laminator other than what I can see on the Europoint website, however it looks like it has the basic 2 clutches/drives + 2 brakes as most laminators of this type.

By the sound of it you may have a problem with the amount of tension you are applying to the brakes – there is an art to this (or so our laminator operators tell me) when setting up a new roll of print and laminate they put print and laminate on the driven points and fully tighten the two brakes on the take up points, then turn back approx 1/4 turn both brakes the same amount – once the operation is running slight tweaks are made checking whether backing paper is going slack at take up or if too tight causing shuddering, same principle for the print roll. The problem you describe sounds like one of the brakes may be too tight or you have clutch problem on one of the driven parts.

Has your supplier not offered any training ? If not it may be worth asking if they can give a short training session on the main do’s and don’ts – I understand you’re in Spain and am assuming you didn’t buy local as you mentioned it was being "shipped to Spain" but would still possibly be worth paying for a one day in and out training session.

Hope this helps

Stuart

[Dan Osterbery]

hi stuart,
thanks for your response, Yes we bought in the uk at xmas when the euro went 1 – 1ish with sterling, and it did represent a huge saving.

i have been through all the tensioning on the phone with the supplier. The weird thing is something must have slipped as it was fine until virtually the end of the roll of laminate. We have made thousands of adjustments and just could not get it right, but today after practicing on m’s of laminate, we installed a new roll, reset and its working beautifully – which is great! But i am unsure whether it was a funny bit of laminate, or just something we can expect when the mandrel that takes up the backing, gets heavier than the mandrel that spools the laminate.

I guess we will find out at the end of this roll, I am sure it is down to inexperience with the machine rather than machine error.

thanks again for you response

Dan

[Stuart Taylor]

Hi Dan

Interesting that the problem occurred towards the end of the roll

One possibility is that the clutch on the driven elements may have slipped under the weight when the take up was almost a full roll. If you experience this regularly at the end of rolls then I would report back to supplier.

We use various different laminators and our most recent is a heavy duty Crest Laminator (cost over 20,000 Euro) and we went through 3 clutches in as many months…..in the end Crest admitted that the spec of the clutch was too low for the materials being used and upgraded free of charge – since the upgrade we’ve experienced no problems and Crest have now included the heavier duty clutch in their new machines.

Not saying it is this but worth watching out for

Stuart

[Andrew Blackett]

Dan (and anyone else for that matter)

We’re looking to get one of these too, are the generally positive comments still valid? Anything we should look out for, would you recommend it?

Best wishes
Andy

[Dan Osterbery]

Hi Andy,
yes it is still going strong, our problems were down to us having no training rather than the machine, we have now learnt how to tweak it, and it has been running without problems for months, with all sorts of different laminates!!

regards

Dan

[Andrew Blackett]

Dan,

Sorry quick question again, I see from the blurb it has a heat assist roller, is this adjustable (i.e. can it go from 0 up to maximum at any setting in between?)

Probably a stupid question but I’m not getting the answers as quickly as I’d like from Europoint and want to make a decision between this and an easymount 1600 with heat assist and media take up.

Cheers
Andy

[Dan Osterbery]

Hi Andy,
yes you can adjust the temp for different materials! anything else fire away, i might be able to find the info sheet they sent me originally when i bought it, if that would help?? pm me your email.

regards

Dan

[Andrew Blackett]

Hi Dan,

Sounds like I could be on to a winner here I think, my sales guy at Europoint has emailed me a spec sheet on an "updated" ability 1600. Its called the 1600R, its basically the easymount 1600 with a new colour scheme.

Just working on a deal at the moment but I reckon its sorted.

Will be firing plenty of questions once I’m set up.

Andy

[Dan Osterbery]

pm me your email please!!

[Andrew Blackett]

Hi Dan,

I cant pm mate but if you pm your details to me I’ll email you through outlook.

Best wishes
Andy

[Dan Osterbery]

i cant pm either, fire me a mail to mail@dcdproductions.net!

cheers

Dan