Hello everyone!
This is my first post to the forum, but I’ve been gathering so much information on here for well over a year now. So first off, thank you all who have offered advice to those in need of help, including me in the shadows.
I now find myself in a position to ask a question that isn’t easily answerable via forum lurking. I’m looking at purchasing my first wide format lamination machine, which I could use some advice on as sometimes sales reps are really only pushing what they sell. Firsthand experience is always best. But first, a little history about my business so an answer can be better formulated.
My company started out in small format digital printing – essentially a step up from a copy shop with a number of retail and wholesale clients. We always did wide format printing and finishing, but only with aqueous inks for indoor use only. 13 years later and we’ve grown our offerings in wide format while continuing to build both small format print and wide format solutions. I’ve been running an HP Latex 360 for almost 3 years now – love it for producing banners and posters. Last summer we acquired an EFI H1625 LED so we can print directly to rigid substrates – that’s been an experience. We will be receiving a Colex Sharpcut flatbed with conveyor in June. Stepping into the rigid substrate printing side of the world has many finishing problems, I mean “opportunities” for us as it’s usually about getting another machine instead of man power. We have smaller 27” Banner American hot laminators (don’t laugh) which have work for us up until now. However, the need for an actual wide format laminator is real, so here I am.
We print on ACM, coroplast, falcon board, acrylic, HIPS, Sintra, occasionally glass, thick and thin paper stocks, various adhesive vinyls, and a number of banner materials. The application for these are both indoor and outdoor signage, decals, floor-window-wall graphics, double and single sided lamination, with and without encapsulation, and strange things in between – no car wraps in the foreseeable future, but business does change course over time. I’d like to do full roll lamination and rigid sheet lamination so I can send it through finishing on the Colex that is coming. Since I’m printing with both latex and LED UV ink, I need a solution that covers this whole gambit for lamination. The various sales reps have shown machines from Seal, Royal Sovereign, and GFP. The concept of cold roll lamination is new to me, so I’m not sure what questions to even ask, except that I want a heat assist one. I know that as my business grows that I don’t want to regret buying something in a year because it didn’t fit our business’s future needs – been down that route a couple times when the “bigger” model was really what I needed. Or it could be that I’m seriously over thinking all of this as it’s just a laminator and buying something that is reasonably functional is ok. My budget is somewhere between 6-10k, unless I find an actual serious reason to spend more. My thoughts have been centered on the Royal Sovereign RSC-1651LSH with heat assist. It seems to be a middle road laminator with a cost effective price tag. Does anyone have any experience with this machine or can offer advice on other machines that would fit my situation? Another option is the RSH-1651 also from Royal Sovereign that is both hot and cold, which could help with the hot lamination I do with paper production, and also because I can no longer get parts for my Banner American laminators. Or should I leave hot lamination to the smaller format laminators? Any insight would be greatly appreciated, and I do apologize for the lengthy post.
This is my first post to the forum, but I’ve been gathering so much information on here for well over a year now. So first off, thank you all who have offered advice to those in need of help, including me in the shadows.
I now find myself in a position to ask a question that isn’t easily answerable via forum lurking. I’m looking at purchasing my first wide format lamination machine, which I could use some advice on as sometimes sales reps are really only pushing what they sell. Firsthand experience is always best. But first, a little history about my business so an answer can be better formulated.
My company started out in small format digital printing – essentially a step up from a copy shop with a number of retail and wholesale clients. We always did wide format printing and finishing, but only with aqueous inks for indoor use only. 13 years later and we’ve grown our offerings in wide format while continuing to build both small format print and wide format solutions. I’ve been running an HP Latex 360 for almost 3 years now – love it for producing banners and posters. Last summer we acquired an EFI H1625 LED so we can print directly to rigid substrates – that’s been an experience. We will be receiving a Colex Sharpcut flatbed with conveyor in June. Stepping into the rigid substrate printing side of the world has many finishing problems, I mean “opportunities” for us as it’s usually about getting another machine instead of man power. We have smaller 27” Banner American hot laminators (don’t laugh) which have work for us up until now. However, the need for an actual wide format laminator is real, so here I am.
We print on ACM, coroplast, falcon board, acrylic, HIPS, Sintra, occasionally glass, thick and thin paper stocks, various adhesive vinyls, and a number of banner materials. The application for these are both indoor and outdoor signage, decals, floor-window-wall graphics, double and single sided lamination, with and without encapsulation, and strange things in between – no car wraps in the foreseeable future, but business does change course over time. I’d like to do full roll lamination and rigid sheet lamination so I can send it through finishing on the Colex that is coming. Since I’m printing with both latex and LED UV ink, I need a solution that covers this whole gambit for lamination. The various sales reps have shown machines from Seal, Royal Sovereign, and GFP. The concept of cold roll lamination is new to me, so I’m not sure what questions to even ask, except that I want a heat assist one. I know that as my business grows that I don’t want to regret buying something in a year because it didn’t fit our business’s future needs – been down that route a couple times when the “bigger” model was really what I needed. Or it could be that I’m seriously over thinking all of this as it’s just a laminator and buying something that is reasonably functional is ok. My budget is somewhere between 6-10k, unless I find an actual serious reason to spend more. My thoughts have been centered on the Royal Sovereign RSC-1651LSH with heat assist. It seems to be a middle road laminator with a cost effective price tag. Does anyone have any experience with this machine or can offer advice on other machines that would fit my situation? Another option is the RSH-1651 also from Royal Sovereign that is both hot and cold, which could help with the hot lamination I do with paper production, and also because I can no longer get parts for my Banner American laminators. Or should I leave hot lamination to the smaller format laminators? Any insight would be greatly appreciated, and I do apologize for the lengthy post.
