Banner Welder Not Meeting Expectations

[rdm01]

Curious to see if anyone else is heat welding banners over good ol' banner tape. Last year we had a member of our team visit the SGIA show. One of the pieces of equipment he came back with great reviews was a Leister banner welder - the Uniplan E.

We wound up purchasing one about a year ago. While the welder itself is undoubtedly a quality piece of engineering, we've yet to find a good use for it. It seems that all of us are able to hem a banner with tape somewhat faster. The corners on tape hemmed banner appear to be cleaner as well. To further the issue, if you shank a banner with the welder, it's done - warm up the printer cause there is no saving it.

I've been somewhat dismayed, not in the welder, but more in our choice to purchase the machine. Before giving up and listing the thing for far less than we payed, I thought I'd check and see if anyone else is using this machine and if they've had luck churning out banners quickly and without large mistakes. Perhaps our settings are off?

 

[Desert_Signs]

I'll give you $500 for it, right now.

I'll even pay shipping.


Seriously.. They take practice. I've run miles of banner through them. Once you get your technique down, it's very fast. MUCH faster than hem tape. Better finish too. I haven't run one for about 2 years, my new shop doesn't do enough banner to justify the cost, but I maybe messed up 1 or 2 banners out of hundreds and hundreds.

 

[rdm01]

Thank you for the reply. Perhaps I'll post a video and see if anyone can suggest technique changes.

We had 2 rolls of banner that we couldn't run through our printer because of a crushed core. We went through both training on the thing. Still slower.

Do you have any suggestions for the settings (speed/temp)?