Automatic Laminators Buyer’s Guide
If you're a business, teacher, print or copy shop, or like to preserve crafts, you eventually might consider purchasing an automatic laminator. It can seem like an overwhelming task to select a new laminator, but we're here to make that choice simpler for you. To help you choose the best automatic laminator for your needs, we've compiled a list of a few key variables to consider.
In this buyer’s guide we will cover:
What are Automatic Laminators?
A laminating machine is still the best way to safeguard a printed document or image. It remains the tool of choice whether you need to protect a page or give it a premium touch in an office, a print shop, or a classroom. While they are slightly more expensive office equipment, along with the supplies they need, automatic laminators are a quick and effortless way to protect documents, signage, artwork, and graphics. Plus, they will save you money in the end because of the minimized labor costs.
To break down what type of automatic laminator you’ll need, first identify if you need an automatic pouch, roll, or cartridge laminator.
What are Automatic Roll Laminators?
Automatic roll laminators use a long roll of film on both sides of the document and press it between the rollers to seal the film. Added with the automatic features of feeding and trimming, you can come back to fully laminated and trimmed sheets in a neat stack. Automatic roll laminators come in standard formats for normal-sized projects and wide formats. Wide format laminators are great for large signs.
Some automatic roll laminators can handle both hot and cold lamination. This is a great feature to have if you sometimes must laminate pressure-sensitive documents. A large university, church, or print shop would benefit from the automatic roll laminators' ability to get bigger jobs done. quickly.
What are Automatic Cartridge Laminators?
Automatic Cartridge laminators use a roll that’s built onto a cartridge, which goes into the laminator. Cartridge laminators are simple to operate and great for a classroom, small business, or quick-print shop that only needs standard sizes laminated from 8.5” x 11” to 11” x 17”. These are the best automatic laminators if you need to laminate around 30-75 sheets at a time, a few times a day. Our top choice for an automatic cartridge laminator is the GBC Foton 30 because it feeds, laminates, and trims 30 pages automatically after pressing start, with no warm-up time needed.
Why Buy an Automatic Laminator?
It’s time to invest in an automatic laminator if you find yourself needing to protect signage, certificates, projects, important documents, or even needing to mass laminate items. No longer will you have to laminate hundreds (or more) documents by inserting them between two sheets of plastic, running them through a machine one-by-one, and then manually trimming them.
What are the Benefits of Automatic Laminating Machines?
A laminating machine is still the best way to safeguard a printed document or image. It remains the tool of choice whether you need to protect a page or give it a premium touch in an office, a print shop, or a classroom. Automatic laminating machines save time, money, and effort, and overall provide protection to your documents.
How to Choose the Best Automatic Laminator for your Needs
When shopping for an automatic laminator, you’ll need to identify the top features you need the most. Factors to include are how often you will need automatic laminating, the types of materials that you need to laminate, if you need pouch lamination, how pages and how fast it can laminate, and the overall size of the automatic laminator.
Choose by Speed:
You're looking into buying an automatic laminator to increase output and productivity, so knowing how many sheets you can laminate is crucial, if not the most important deciding factor. Some laminators, like the desktop-sized Revo-Office Automatic Laminator, can produce up to 240 sheets hourly. If you have less laminating to do, you can grab the GBC Foton. It can handle up to 30 sheets.
Look at our top choices for automatic laminators and their output speeds.
What Sizes do you need to Laminate?
Another key factor in your decision for an automatic laminator is the size of documents that you will need to laminate. If you need standard sizes like 8.5” x 11” (or smaller), you can choose a standard format. Standard format automatic laminators are great for documents like ID cards, teaching guides, small posters, or hand-made crafts.
If your projects are larger, you can also check out the wide-format laminators.
Choose by Physical Size:
Hot or Cold Laminators?
The automatic laminating machine has different options for how it applies lamination to the document.
Cold Laminators
With cold laminators, the document will be sandwiched between two sheets of plastic and laminated using pressure and glue. There is no need for more than the pressure applied by the rollers to get the job done. The rollers also add additional pressure, resulting in fewer bubbles or creasing during the lamination process.
Some users favor cold laminators over hot ones because they prefer not to deal with the heating elements. The cold laminator requires less time to set up and less maintenance and feeding than its hot counterpart. There is little to no learning curve to using one of them. Cold laminators are good for stickers and adhesive decorations since you can choose to laminate just one side of a graphic
Hot Laminators
When using a hot laminator, the adhesive will be heated to activate it and will secured once cooled. The thermal laminator has several benefits, as well as certain factors to think about. While these automatic laminators have heating elements, they typically take less than 5 minutes to warm up before their ideal temperature.
FAQs
Check out some of our most frequently asked questions to get a better concept of automatic laminators.
What can be laminated?
Protect documents, including pamphlets, photos, and other documents like insurance cards or vehicle registration with a laminator. There are also wide-format laminators available that can handle larger projects like posters or signs.
How do Automatic Laminators Work?
Using an automated laminator is as simple as hitting a button. These automated machines feed, laminate, and trim, giving you more time to work on multiple jobs simultaneously. Automated laminators are ideal for every project since they have options for letter-sized pages, bigger papers, and irregular shapes. These laminators also feature special film cartridges that make switching films as easy as possible.
Which is better, a cold or hot laminator?
Both cold and hot laminators have advantages and disadvantages. Heat is the primary differentiating factor between hot and cold laminators, with the latter employing pressure and more adhesive sheets. Some laminators also offer a cold setting that enables you to select between cold and hot laminating techniques. Cold lamination might be better for papers susceptible to heat, including old photographs.
Do more rollers equal less jamming?
There will be fewer jams and higher quality lamination with more rollers in the machine. Fewer jams are because more rollers smooth the document throughout the machine and make the heat applied to the pouch more consistent.
How Fast Does an Automatic Laminator Take to Warm Up?
Automatic laminators don’t take long to warm-up. The majority take up to approximately 5 minutes to warm up and will start the lamination process once they've reached the desired temperature.
Who needs an automatic laminator?
An automatic laminator is great for anyone that needs to laminate dozens of documents at a time or hundreds to thousands a day. Automatic laminators reduce the labor needed with automatic alignment and feeders and reduce waste with automatic trimming.
Automatic laminators are an addition to individual classrooms all the way up to mid-size offices to print shops.
What is “Encapsulation”?
Technically, encapsulation includes both pouch and roll lamination. Any item that has been laminated, whether using a pouch laminator or a roll laminator, is enclosed since the paper has been completely covered in lamination (lamination is where both sides are covered in the plastic). “Encapsulation” is a term that is interchangeable with both.
Choosing the Best Automatic Laminator for you.
Keep these factors in mind whether you're purchasing your automatic laminator or searching for an upgrade. Automatic lamination is a time-saving technique great for small-batch projects or commercial use. Finding the ideal machine for your needs won't be difficult if you know which aspects are most crucial. Browse your choices and feel confident with your purchase with MyBinding.
MyBinding carries many choices, from traditional pouch lamination to fully automatic laminators that feed, laminate, and trim stacks of documents at the touch of a button, lowering operating costs and raising output. Whether you need to laminate a few dozen pages or thousands at once, our automatic laminating equipment has been carefully chosen to meet your needs. To ask any questions about our Fully Automatic Laminators, call us toll-free at 855-880-7500.
