Notarealsignguy
Arial - it's almost helvetica
We ordered a new laminator with slitters that have a sensor and motor that is supposed to adjust the knife position to compensate for skew. It'd be nice if it worked but don't have high hopes
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Suggestions Adding slitters to roll laminator?
- Thread starter White Haus
- Start date
MNT_Printhead
Working among the Corporate Lizard People
I bought the slitter bar with 2 slitters when I got a Kala last year, I am now up 5 and love the time it saves.
Signed Out
New Member
What laminator is that?
MNT_Printhead
Working among the Corporate Lizard People
I'd like to hear about this laminator and slitter sensors.
The Kala has auto leveling rollers so it skews very little if the set up is good. I have learned I am better running the full amount of prints I want to cut at once, because when my HP 360 and 365 stop and restart it knocks off the alignment of those printed before; I have found it easy to adjust on the fly as the machine runs and just clean up a few off cuts by hand after. I do a lot of fleet graphics for the back of trailers so on those I can give a variance of .25=.5" and design for it. I also don't use crop marks and have very thin .25-.5 stoke outline at 10-15% K that won't been seen unless you are trying to kiss my decals.
Notarealsignguy
Arial - it's almost helvetica
It's a Chinese machine, not sure if I need to say more haha. If it works I'll report back, if not I'll keep quiet to avoid the I told you so's. We've had pretty good luck with the import laminators and thought we would give one of the big units with swingout air shafts a shot. It's 1500 lbs but for all I know it could be filled with concrete.
We have one on our new Royal sovereign at work... Not only is it 4x faster (less than 5 mins to laminate a full roll) it has 4 cutters on it.... And I have to say they're awesome.
They use a proprietary blade that costs like $20.... And the mechanism to engage / disengage also sucks, you have to twist it, then use all yournkightnto twist it even more to ensure it's going deep enough.
I don't think an Olfa would work, it's too flimsy and would cause a lot of travel - but a heavy duty utility blade might.
And designing something in a 3d printer would be easier for this since it has little notches.
What rs laminator do you have? I have one at home and I eventually I'm going to try to 3d print something for it, it really comes in handy and makes life so much easier. All the people who have it and say it's a gimick are liars!
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We have one on our new Royal sovereign at work... Not only is it 4x faster (less than 5 mins to laminate a full roll) it has 4 cutters on it.... And I have to say they're awesome.
They use a proprietary blade that costs like $20.... And the mechanism to engage / disengage also sucks, you have to twist it, then use all yournkightnto twist it even more to ensure it's going deep enough.
I don't think an Olfa would work, it's too flimsy and would cause a lot of travel - but a heavy duty utility blade might.
And designing something in a 3d printer would be easier for this since it has little notches.
What rs laminator do you have? I have one at home and I eventually I'm going to try to 3d print something for it, it really comes in handy and makes life so much easier. All the people who have it and say it's a gimick are liars!
View attachment 170162
where i can, i have been buying carbide utility blades for EVERYTHING including the folding utility knife that clips on my belt. (it's really nice when it ACTUALLY CUTS.) a carpet installer got me doing this.We have one on our new Royal sovereign at work... Not only is it 4x faster (less than 5 mins to laminate a full roll) it has 4 cutters on it.... And I have to say they're awesome.
They use a proprietary blade that costs like $20.... And the mechanism to engage / disengage also sucks, you have to twist it, then use all yournkightnto twist it even more to ensure it's going deep enough.
I don't think an Olfa would work, it's too flimsy and would cause a lot of travel - but a heavy duty utility blade might.
And designing something in a 3d printer would be easier for this since it has little notches.
What rs laminator do you have? I have one at home and I eventually I'm going to try to 3d print something for it, it really comes in handy and makes life so much easier. All the people who have it and say it's a gimick are liars!
View attachment 170162
a $20 blade might be a good investment, if it lasts. the big fletchers both drive me crazy how quick the blades dull
victor bogdanov
Active Member
My Lefu laminator has slitters and a little adjustment knob so that the slitters can move with any skew, works well, so far has been amazing for the price. 2 kilometers laminated so far according to the laminator
Notarealsignguy
Arial - it's almost helvetica
We also ordered one from Lefu, they have a good reputation from what I could find.
You can see the digitally controlled slitters this one has. I really got it for the swing out air shafts but if these actually work it'd be nice.
victor bogdanov
Active Member
That looks amazing and probably and unbelievably good price
The take up reel on there looks like it wouldn't hold a full roll.
On our new rs... When printing on reflective, we can't do a full roll because about 130ft in the rolls too big and starts hitting the outeed table, that one looks smaller... Unless it's just the angle.
Looks good though - we need one that can mount 100 ft of magnet... So really thick, I never considered Chinese ones but I think I'll take a look!
I just did the unthinkable as well last week.... After playing with our flatbed for a week doing repairs, I felt comfortable enough to take apart and put one back together from pieces.... So I bought a small 60x90 Chinese flatbed that can do braille / tactile....
Nothing wrong with Chinese stuff if you know what you're getting into, and willing to risk losing all your money on a paperweight if you don't. Don't buy a $5000 printer and expect the reliability of a $30,000 printer and you're fine
On our new rs... When printing on reflective, we can't do a full roll because about 130ft in the rolls too big and starts hitting the outeed table, that one looks smaller... Unless it's just the angle.
Looks good though - we need one that can mount 100 ft of magnet... So really thick, I never considered Chinese ones but I think I'll take a look!
I just did the unthinkable as well last week.... After playing with our flatbed for a week doing repairs, I felt comfortable enough to take apart and put one back together from pieces.... So I bought a small 60x90 Chinese flatbed that can do braille / tactile....
Nothing wrong with Chinese stuff if you know what you're getting into, and willing to risk losing all your money on a paperweight if you don't. Don't buy a $5000 printer and expect the reliability of a $30,000 printer and you're fine
Notarealsignguy
Arial - it's almost helvetica
Uh oh. Hope they aren't that stupid? I'll rig up something if need be. What head is in that printer?
I've bought quite a bit from China. As long as you do your research and buy from the source you can find good products. They are really easy to deal with if you know what you want but they sell products, not support. They expect that you can fix it yourself and that's why you get spare brushes with your harbor freight grinder.
White Haus, you might contact one of these companies and buy the slitter setup that they have and adapt it to your machine. They might even make you one that you could bolt on.
It's hard to tell in the video because it's so blurry... Only uploaded in 240p!
Our rs will fit a regular roll of vinyl, just barely but it fits. We reached out and they were shocked it didn't hold a full roll of traffic reflective and Overlam.... Had to send them dimensions of the rolls and everything and they confirmed it wouldn't work, I guess they overlooked it.
And yeah - I buy stuff from China a lot, the truck is not to buy the cheapest and to do your research.
Most of the Chinese flatbeds use old heads... It seems they all use dx8, or dx11 heads - dx8 heads print 10-20% faster.... But cost 5x as much as a dx11 head does - being a cheapo chinese printed I opted for the dx11 heads as they're way easier to get and replace.... And cheaper. Like $200 a head - so if / when it clogs or gets destroyed, it won't break the bank.
Key thing is to buy from a vendor who's been on Alibaba for a long time - usually their stuff isn't garbage and they support it a bit - I mean, compared to a true flatbed like vanguard where the head costs more than a whole Chinese flatbed, itll be "garbage" when you compare it to that... But if you go into it knowing you're buying a "consumer flatbed" and not a production machine, you won't be disappointed.
For me it's a toy to play with, learn the ins and outs of braille / tactile printing on a 3.5k usd machine and seeing if it works before we buy a 45k Roland just for braille, since we already have a 5x10 flatbed.
Lots of research, and low expectations.... And you can get some fun toys to play with. My omtech laser is chinese... Supported locally, but a 24"x40" 100 watt laser for $5000 vs a 30k trotec is a no brainer for me... Does everything the trotec does. Liked it so much I bought a fiber laser directly from China, got a 60 watt mopa for 4k and its been running perfect. For every good, quality vendors there is about 100 that are garbage and scams though.
I've heard good things about lefu, so I'll research them for our next laminator in a few months! The good thing is they're usually willing to custom make something for you for cheap.
I complained about the 60x90 flatbed being just under 24"x36", and they said they get that a lot and are currently custom making a 25" x 37" for someone and would be willing to make one for me as well if I wanted, it'd just take a month.
victor bogdanov
Active Member
Look at where our epson R5070 is made...
victor bogdanov
Active Member
i recently did 6 mil vinyl laminated with 7 mil laminate, 150ft, was the fattest roll I've ever seen. Fit no problem in the Lefu but was close to the limit.
Notarealsignguy
Arial - it's almost helvetica
I think this is becoming less true as time goes on. I don't use Alibaba for anything except basic stuff like buying squeegees in bulk. You'd probably be surprised at how many well recognized printer manufacturers are using rebranded complete Chinese machines, frames or other parts of the assemblies. If you look hard enough and ask the right people, you can usually figure it out. The good brands also know what cheap Chinese components to avoid, like linear rails, bearings, servo motors etc. On the low end they will use DX heads, i1600, i3200, KM1024 but the higher end you'll find Gen6 and KJ4 heads, maglev rails, magnetic encoders, panasonic servos etc.
The rub for me is how much markup these rebranded imports have. Local support? sure it's nice but when you start talking 3-4x the cost of the same exact machine you could hire an in house tech for a year or more to do nothing but dial in the machine and be out the same amount of money. It's not as if there are no horror stories on here of people who bought lemons from reputable manufacturers, people that had a tech out a million times with no resolution, people that sat waiting on parts or service for a month+ and people who just gave up and bought something else. We just went through that with the Graphtec we bought. It's not as if the potential to buy a boat anchor only exists if you buy a Chinese machine. You can also pay them to fly over and repair, setup or whatever, it's just on your dime. You also get what you pay for and quality isn't "cheap" no matter where you go. As they say, the bigger the risk, the bigger the reward. Now that I said all this, I will probably be eating my words in a month but we will see.
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Yup. I go into it with the mindset that I learn on a cheap piece of equipment... then buy the "Professional" grade one after I make all my learning mistakes on the cheap equipment. I say that...but then my Omtech turned out to be better than Trotec (For my needs). I've had to do mirror alignments, had to lubricate the rails a lot...replace a few limit switches, level the bed, Added a new compressor withdual air lines so It'll always blow a small amount of air when its off, and a large amount when I want it on...etc. I've gotten to a point where if I had the machine apart in 1000 pieces...I could build it from scratch... Which isnt for everyone, but I like to do all my own repairs and understand HOW and why the equipment is built the way it is...so I know how to get myself back up and running quickly.
Same with the flatbed - I've had to take apart every piece on our CET 5x10 this past month... It's my works flatbed, so I don't mind if I break something
But if it was my 100K Machine, I wouldnt want to touch it and I'd only let a tech do it... It's much easier to take apart ink lines and heads, and capping stations on a 4K printer than on a 40K printer. And I figure any problem I have with a name brand printer, I'd have already had with the chinese printer.... so I'm ahead of myself.I think your laminator will workfine, leaf is a good brand and has been around awhile - I think their early flatbed applicators had low spots / issues... not sure if that got worked out, but I imagine it did - But their regular laminators have always been reviewed good.
Signarama Jockey
New Member
Coming into this discussion, I was thinking "this is a disaster/trip to the ER in the making". In my head, I'm imagining the blade not cutting and the whole print wadding up and folding over onto itself. I'm thinking even if it does cut perfectly, now you have a roll of tape that's spooling out over everything. Finally, when someone reaches back to reload the laimination, they are going to get a razor blade in their wrist and we'll need to call an ambulance.
But, as I read more of these comments and see the commercially available products, I have to change my position from disbelieving to merely skeptical. I'd be interested in seeing how this works out for you. Please let us know how it works out, and if you had any issues (ie stitches).
But, as I read more of these comments and see the commercially available products, I have to change my position from disbelieving to merely skeptical. I'd be interested in seeing how this works out for you. Please let us know how it works out, and if you had any issues (ie stitches).
victor bogdanov
Active Member
I did slice my hand first time using the slitters
. There are plenty of warning signs and the blades have an up/down position. I left one blade down and reached in without looking.Won't happen again, definitely learned and remember to look for the blades, I now triple check that the blades are up and where my hand is going when feeding the laminate thru
Notarealsignguy
Arial - it's almost helvetica
Don't put your hands in places you can't see unless you're prepared for a surprise.
Signarama Jockey
New Member
youch.I did slice my hand first time using the slitters
Won't happen again, definitely learned and remember to look for the blades, I now triple check that the blades are up and where my hand is going when feeding the laminate thru
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