Need Help Suggestions looking to buy a new laminator

Budget? You could go really cheap or really expensive here lol

 

Our current laminator is a a Kayla Mistral and I highly recommend it. It' has a heat assist which helps with silvering, and the spooling option is great - I can do really long runs with this.

 

We have a CWT 1640 flatbed laminator AND a GFP 563TH and use them both all day. The GFP is good for long runs like a whole wrap job or wall mural, the flatbed is great for smaller stuff or specialty laminates and also is the best at mounting and sticking vinyl to substrates.

Just my .02¢

 

Can't say I know anything about that. We've had ours over 3 years, it gets used most of the day, every day as we are all print and stick. No issues or problems thus far. I really couldn't understand how the frame could "twist" if you saw the structural steel under this thing I think you could park a car on it and it wouldn't bend. Maybe someone is referring to the smaller tables?

Again, if you're doing a lot of print and stick I would say having 2 laminators (roll fed and a flatbed) is the way to go as 1 won't be able to do all jobs as effectively as each unit has its strengths and weaknesses)

 

We bought a RollsRoller 280/145 Entry (roughly 109" x 56") and it's been a great investment for both laminating prints and mounting to substrate. However, we don't do wraps so I can't speak on that. While I'd imagine the RollsRoller could laminate wrap panels easily enough, I'd think a standard roll to roll laminator would be a bit more efficient.

 

We've had it for a few years now. We are actually on our second one - long story short, the first one was involved in a car accident and insurance bought a new one. The second one is as wonderful as the first one. Issues - particularly on the second one, the take-up core keeps trying to "crawl" out of it's slot. As I laminate it the rotation eventually rotates it out and it crashes on the floor. There should be more tension there - my current solution is a bungy cord which is doing the trick. Other issue most people have is the safety laser. I use our old laminator for mounting substrates which is where the safety laser on the Kayla is a pain. There is a workaround but some people don't find that helpful. When laminating vinyl the laser not so much of an issue - I don't have any problems.

 

I have the GFP 563Th, and it's great. It's the only one I've ever had, so I can't help compare, but the one down side to point out is when laminating a whole roll, it would get too heavy and the tension spring on the take up reel would compress and drop the roll, scaring the sh!t out of the guy staring at the leading edge of the machine! Sounds similiar to Boudica's issue with the Kayla if I'm not mistaken?
Rolls Rollers are f*cking crazy comparatively speaking. I can't see it being the best as far as laminating, but for mounting it's hilariously fast. Moving a 4x8 through my GFP at 3/4 speed, it probably takes 10-15 seconds to fully 'eject' the sheet. On the Rolls, you could blink and miss the machine traversal movement.

 

LOL, that does sound similar - however - it happens right at the start. Once I have enough spooled up, it will stay in place better (if I baby sit it and keep pushing it back in until it's heavy enough) - so it's not too much weight in my case. We just need to figure out how to get the tension back. I didn't have this problem with the first Kayla - well actually I take that back. After a while (year or so) this started happening but we just used a lil dab of lithium grease and that solved the problem - back then. It didn't work on the new one - buy my bungy cord does.

 

That's really weird, can you shoot a picture? I've looked at these before, but not many pictures.
Also, now I have to ask, how did you get the laminator in a car accident?

 

Do you want a picture of the bungy?

 

2nd try: how our laminator was in a car accident:

 

As you can see, the laminator was parked, and this was clearly the other guys fault. DUI approx 70 mph, he took out a telephone pole before he smashed into our building.

 

I believe you can. I have not tried it - I use our old laminator for mounting. Oh, another feature I have not tried yet, but your supposed to be able to laminate two sides at once. One of these days I'm going to try it, but the need hasn't come up yet.

 

I really should state that the bungy thing should not be necessary - hopefully if you decide to get one you will not need a workaround. I really should get this fixed.

 

We have a Kala, got it mainly for the ability to lam full rolls with awesome tracking, and also be able to trim off the margins with the optional slitters. Hands down it laminates and tracks perfectly, full 150' rolls. But the slitters are designed all wrong and don't work good at all. We have used both versions of their slitters (they came out with a newly revised version because the original had so many complaints) the new updated version was even worse than the original.

The safety lasers as mentioned are a huge PIA on these. And everytime you trip it, you have to hit a reset button. Doesn't sound like much but super annoying. They can be bypassed, however we haven't bothered, since we don't use ours at all...

Mounting to substrates sucks big time on this machine too. Tables are too small, and the rollers have a very thin coating so they aren't as forgiving as say a royal soverign.

It is a hell of a laminator though, if all you want to do with it is long runs roll to roll. Set it and walk away. We ran about 60 rolls through ours during a large wrap project, and it's been parked in the corner of the shop ever since. We use our old royal soverign instead. Have been trying to get our supplier to buy it back, but yea not happening.

Anybody want to buy a slightly used one? About to put it up for sale on digital garage.