US Cutter Lightning Lam laminator

[Pixels Are Bad Mmmkay?]

We are looking to buy the US Cutter Lightning Lam laminator. You can find info about it here...

http://www.uscutter.com/USCutter-LightningLam-Lite-63-Heat-Assisted-Cold-Laminator

Has anyone here had any experience with this laminator? I checked the archives and there's not much information here about them and there is only one review on the US Cutter site. This is a new machine that I'm thinking was just released on the market sometime this year so reviews are hard to come by. I think it would be perfect for our needs as we are a small shop on a budget and we would mostly be using it to laminate prints to substrate and possibly to apply transfer tape to cut vinyl. We still outsource our printing so limited use of this machine would give me plenty of time to learn the ins and outs before buying a printer and learning to apply laminate to prints. Does anyone have any advice or information regarding this machine? I appreciate any feedback.

 

[player]

For my next laminator I want it to wind up laminated prints. It would also be good to have it unroll the print as it goes in. Roll to roll. If you ever do long runs these become very desirable features. Keep the prints off the floor.

The brackets holding the upper winders look flimsy.

At the end of the video they show a more robust machine also available. I would look into that unit as well as USTECH: http://www.bestdgi.com/index.html

I am not sure how important the heat is. I have been laminating for years with a low end 65" cold unit (54" wide prints) and not had issues. I have read, if I remember correctly, the heated roller can cause unwanted stretching and some people who have the heated rollers never use them...

 

[player]

This one looks great:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-1520mm-...aminating-Machine-With-Take-Up-/291309554292?

 

[AF]

For my next laminator I want it to wind up laminated prints. It would also be good to have it unroll the print as it goes in. Roll to roll. If you ever do long runs these become very desirable features. Keep the prints off the floor.

The brackets holding the upper winders look flimsy.

At the end of the video they show a more robust machine also available. I would look into that unit as well as USTECH: http://www.bestdgi.com/index.html

I am not sure how important the heat is. I have been laminating for years with a low end 65" cold unit (54" wide prints) and not had issues. I have read, if I remember correctly, the heated roller can cause unwanted stretching and some people who have the heated rollers never use them...

Heat is a good thing on a hign-end laminator, but I can imagine it could cause issues on some of the entry level laminators out there that have idler bars and crowned rollers.

Roll to roll is the ideal way to go for processing prints longer than 8 feet. Having the material feed directly from the supply shaft and wrap around the bottom nip roller eliminates nearly all problems with long laminations. If the material feeds from the supply shaft and around the infeed table and then travels flat to the nip, you lose most of the benefit of the direct-to-nip laminators and can have problems on long runs. I would consider the material path of the laminator as part of the decision process.

 

[player]

Heat is a good thing on a hign-end laminator, but I can imagine it could cause issues on some of the entry level laminators out there that have idler bars and crowned rollers.

Roll to roll is the ideal way to go for processing prints longer than 8 feet. Having the material feed directly from the supply shaft and wrap around the bottom nip roller eliminates nearly all problems with long laminations. If the material feeds from the supply shaft and around the infeed table and then travels flat to the nip, you lose most of the benefit of the direct-to-nip laminators and can have problems on long runs. I would consider the material path of the laminator as part of the decision process.

You mean it goes from roll to nips... and if the front table is a part of it forget about it?

 

[player]

Here is another feature loaded Chinese cheapy:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-1520mm-...ting-Machine-Heat-Assistance-CE-/271684679990

 

[AF]

You mean it goes from roll to nips... and if the front table is a part of it forget about it?

The benefit of roll-to-nip versus roll-to-table-to-nip is that by having the media make the 1/4 turn around the lower nip roller guarantees the material is flat as the lam is applied and prevents buckling / tunneling / distortion / skewing / etc of the printed media. It is the same concept as rolling a curled and wavy print to a core and it lays flat. If the print has to travel flat for a ways as it enters the nip, it can shrink and buckle and get weird before it gets laminated and the problem can manifest as a ruined job. Roll to roll is fantastic because the print is then wound up on a core and ready for further processing.

 

[DirtyD]

I purchased the Lighting Lam from US Cutter and did that review.

I purchased the higher end Lam with heat assist, I do not use the heat though, the Laminater I got does roll to roll.

This Laminater is actually very well built nice solid construction, does not seem cheaply built at all. The top roller goes as high as 1.5" (on my model) and laminates print to substrate just fine. I have used it for that purpose as well as regular laminate and masking cut vinyl with no problems.

The machine came almost 100% complete in crate, just had to install the heating element in the top roller which I have yet to do, as I do not use the heat, just went with in case I ever did.

The machine has a nice feature for when you hit power off the rollers automatically raise so you don't forget to raise them at the end of the day and flat spot the rollers.

I would say all in all it's a good machine, it does a superb job at laminating, that's what it was made to do, I don't believe a machine that pinches 2 rollers together and rolls should cost 10 - 20k, that is stupid. I have yet to have problems with the machine and I'm sure if I ever do USCutter will help out, they really are good people.

I can always post a youtube video if you like

 

[Pixels Are Bad Mmmkay?]

I can always post a youtube video if you like

Please do if you don't mind. Nice to hear that you're having good luck with your purchase. I've been very hesitant thus far at jumping into anything in particular, but this one definitely seems great for the price.

 

[Pixels Are Bad Mmmkay?]

Here is another feature loaded Chinese cheapy:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-1520mm-...ting-Machine-Heat-Assistance-CE-/271684679990

Thanks so much for making my decision easier. Hehe.

 

[DirtyD]

Here is 2 videos I made.. The videos are terrible the quality is good but I am not a vidoegrapher by no means..

Hope it helps


[video=youtube_share;oPs7llmtjLI]http://youtu.be/oPs7llmtjLI[/video]

[video=youtube_share;wrjmN7Qah44]http://youtu.be/wrjmN7Qah44[/video]

 

[Pixels Are Bad Mmmkay?]

Here is 2 videos I made.

Thanks, man. I appreciate you taking the time to demonstrate the machine. It's impressive for the price tag. We've got a lot of thinking to do, as I originally thought the cheaper model would do enough of what we need, but maybe this deluxe model would be more in our best interests for when we buy a printer down the road.