Wednesday, 11 June 2008

Which is the best A3 laminator?

With so many different laminators on the market making the right choice can seem more like a lottery. The purpose of his blog is to try and help you make the right choice for your application.

I make no apologies for devoting this whole blog to the GBC laminator brand. I have sold many different brands of laminator over the years and they are the ones that last. I got tired of selling the laminators that would break down in less than six months. On top of that, if something does go wrong, they have fantastic warranty support that can get you back up and running quickly.

The two most popular A3 laminators are the GBC H312 and the GBC H315 For most everyday applications they will perform adequately and are particularly popular in schools. The only difference between these two models is the speed of lamination.

The next three models GBC H425 , GBC H520 and GBC H535 use 4 roller technology. This gives a better finish to the laminated item - reducing bubbles and creases to a minimum. The GBC H535 also has variable speed control - the slower the lamination the less chance of creasing.

This leaves the all singing, all dancing GBC Pro 3500 A3 Laminator. This is for the serious professional. It has preset temperatures, six speeds, five rollers for a true photo quality finish and even a cold lamination feature.

The most popular laminating pouches have a total thickness of either 150 micron or 250 micron. All the machines shown above can use them - but don't forget to take into account the thickness of the paper or card you are laminating!

All too often we have to replace laminating machines because the item to be laminated is just too thick to go through the machine. There is no direct relationship between the weight of the paper and the thickness but a rough guide is as follows:

80gsm paper is approximately 100 microns thick.
120gsm paper is approximately 150 microns thick.
160gsm card is approximately 200 microns thick.

The following table details the GBC A3 Laminator range:

A3 Laminator

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