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Thinking of getting a laminater ….. any suggestions ?
Good morning. Hope this is in the right section.
We’ve been digitally printing for a while using our Grenadier SP-1400C and think it’s about time we thought about getting a laminater.
I’m not even sure where to start as i’ve never seen a laminater in action and to be honest not 100% certain how they work ?. Is there one that someone could recommend that would work well alongside our Grenadier printer ? We are using the Colorific Bio Inks too is that makes any difference ?
Apologies for being quite vague.
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18 Replies
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About 7-8 years ago we bought our Grenadier & Laminator from B&P Adrian.
I dont know allot about laminators mate, but at the time i was advised on cold lamination for vinyl print lamination on vehicle wraps. so that is the route i took.. cold laminator 65 inches wide.
We have two printers, a Grenadier and A Roland AJ. both use Colorific inks, the Grenadier also uses the same Ink as you do, the Bio-ink.we only use the laminator for laminating vinyl to this day… not used for mounting prints or anything as we use a RollsRoller for that.
just keep in mind exactly what you want the machine to do. mounting, laminating prints etc you could also want to use it for encapsulating and so on… they can cover various uses depending on which you go for.on that, i would also suggest checking the types of vinyl you use for lets say, wrapping… 8 years is a long time, since then i have read some suppliers spec hot laminating, whilst others cold, when vehicle wrapping, so its best checking thinks like that against the medias you use.
as i say, 7-8 years down the line ours is as good as knew really. just keeps going.
B&P are not around these days, and if i remember right they aquired some laminating company back in the day. so i am not sure how you would source the same. from memory though i think Grafityp sold the same machines, but could be wrong. B&P tended to rebadge all their kit anyway, but had a quick look and the machine says "Neolt Neolam" on it underside.
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Cheers for that. Might be worth giving Grafityp a call first and see what they have to say about the various ones they do.
We don’t actually do any wrapping here, in fact we don’t hardly ever get involved in vehicle graphics at all. Main uses would really be to just laminate prints that are being supplied as labels or for application to flat panels. I’ll check out that brand name too and see if anyone turns up.
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we just bought a seal EL 54" to go along with our vp540i. we had a cheap laminator before that which was useless, apart from mounting prints to substrates.
the seal is so well built, easy to use and so far has been awesome! well worth spending some extra hard earned on the right equipment! -
would have to say the seal range does it for me,
we just bought a new version at the sign show and you have to manually take the roller up and down, the make i cant think of at the mo
some things you think will not annoy you but it does, the older version is air operated and is by far the better optionwe use a latex printer and hot seal every thing in gloss or matt anti graffiti film, depending on there location on site,
as rob does we then apply with the rolls roller, (so easy) but we have on many occasions sent dibond panels + fomex through the laminator with great results -
I’d like to agree on the seal ones – we have an old image 600. Air powered rollers and infinate pressure adjustment.
Have a word with laaco laminates (Simon Dobson) he refurbs these older machines, as well as others.
Andy
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the new one we just got has the manual hand crank, but has a digi readout to show you what the gap hight is, real easy! its really nice, have a look on tinternet/youtube at one.
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We have an cold easymount does exactly what its meant to. Great kit.
Matt
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Biederman laminators from Germany. Very good!! :punk:
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Laminating is easy with any bit of kit, be wary of spending too much for bells and whistles that arn’t of any real use except to relieve you of cash.
Like Matt, we have a very simply – inexpensive cold laminator from easymount. does what it’s meant to do exactly. Any and all errors are purely operator based… ie:
laminie, (the piece to be laminated) not fed in straight – can be a real disaster!
Back tension: keep reasonable tension on laminate and laminie – can easily be done by hands.Also easymount spares etc are easy to get from Vivid, I think that’s their name.
cheers,
Timmy
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I bought a cheapie 1600 wide cold laminator from china, only cost me £700, had it nearly 2 years and it rolls out perfect lams everytime to this day… I did a 3meter run with it yesterday… not one crease!
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Just my view , we sell Easymounts and Seals but used to sell a chinese version, while the majority of them worked fine and are still going strong a few were faulty and ultimately as there was no comeback cost us a considerable amount either fixing or replacing depending if they developed the fault within warranty or not, 4 from about 64 sold were affected, ours were a good deal more than £700, cant remember ever having a problem with the others.
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Just doing a bit of thread revival here 🙂
I have recently changed my work position and will be travelling to Neolt in Italy very soon. I’d be very interested to know who is still running these…..
Stafford
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The Chinese ones stafford?
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quote Mo Gillis-Coates:I bought a cheapie 1600 wide cold laminator from china, only cost me £700, had it nearly 2 years and it rolls out perfect lams everytime to this day… I did a 3meter run with it yesterday… not one crease!
Would it do 30 metres though? i.e a full wrap
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quote Jon Marshall:quote Mo Gillis-Coates:I bought a cheapie 1600 wide cold laminator from china, only cost me £700, had it nearly 2 years and it rolls out perfect lams everytime to this day… I did a 3meter run with it yesterday… not one crease!
Would it do 30 metres though? i.e a full wrap
In one sheet? I dont know I have never tried, but then again I have never printed a full wrap on one 30 meter roll….. I always break it down in to panel sizes of about 2 meters……
what are you wrapping an articulated lorry? all the wraps that we do are about 15 -20 meters max
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I’ve got a cheap chinese laminator and while it does the jobs that i put through it fine i would not describe it as a professional tool. The wiring on the foot pedal was shoddy so i rewired it, the drive chain/sprocket started to jam till there was a loud noise and a piece of metal broke off it, it then ran ok, it is used almost daily and does the job but no way would i try and put 30m through it.
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quote Mo Gillis-Coates:The Chinese ones stafford?
No, they’re Italian Mo.
http://www.neoltdigital.com/index.php?o … =2&lang=en
It seems that there’s a lot of them out there but they are so solid, they just keep on running!! Not a bad thing I suppose.
Here’s a link to the owners thread I started in case anybody is interested:
https://www.uksignboards.com/viewtopic.php?t=57872
Stafford
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quote Mo Gillis-Coates:quote Jon Marshall:quote Mo Gillis-Coates:I bought a cheapie 1600 wide cold laminator from china, only cost me £700, had it nearly 2 years and it rolls out perfect lams everytime to this day… I did a 3meter run with it yesterday… not one crease!
Would it do 30 metres though? i.e a full wrap
In one sheet? I dont know I have never tried, but then again I have never printed a full wrap on one 30 meter roll….. I always break it down in to panel sizes of about 2 meters……
what are you wrapping an articulated lorry? all the wraps that we do are about 15 -20 meters max
You still laminate all those 2m drops in one go though dont you?
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