Are you in the market for a pouch laminator, but are having a tough time settling on any one model? Many of our customers have been taking a serious look at Fellowes’ line of pouch laminators. Fellowes is well known for their line of paper shredders, but is their line of pouch laminators any good? I will be reviewing the Fellowes Jupiter JL-125 pouch laminator.

To start with, the Jupiter JL-125 is one nice looking laminator. It features a rounded, glossy outer shell that is reminiscent of something you would find on a sci-fi spaceship. The design is very contemporary and fits in very well with most offices. It is extremely compact, takes up a fairly small footprint and can easily be stored in a cupboard or drawer.

Looks aren’t everything. The real question is “how well does it work?” To start with, the Jupiter JL-125 uses a four-roller system for laminating products. This is actually pretty nice. The general rule for pouch laminators is the more rollers the better the end result. Many two-roller systems require pouches to be run through twice. The four roller system cuts down on cloudy finishes and bubbles in the lamination.

Once plugged in, the Jupiter JL-125 takes about four-minutes to warm up. This is pretty good and is in line with what most comparable pouch laminators do. The laminator has a green indicator light and makes an audible sound when it is ready to be used. Because the Jupiter JL-125 uses special heat shielding technology, this laminator is easy to handle when fully warmed up.

The Jupiter JL-125 is similar to the Fellowes Saturn SL-125, but is designed for higher volume use and can handle thicker pouches. The JL-125 can handle laminating pouches up to 7 mils thick.

One thing I really like about the Jupiter JL-125 is the reverse mode. This makes it really easy to back out miss-fed pouches and re-position material. Although it claims not to require a carrier, I would still recommend using one. It also includes a laminating film starter kit.

Here are some great alternatives to the JL-125.

• Banner American PL12A Pouch Laminator
• Akiles UltraLam 250B Laminating Machine
• Tamerica TCC-330 Pouch Laminator

The Fellowes Jupiter JL-125 is a great all-purpose laminator for light to medium-volume use. You can find the Fellowes Jupiter JL-125 here. You can find our entire selection of pouch laminating machines here.

Do you own the Jupiter JL-125? Let me know what you think about it by posting a comment. Have a great day!

Are you looking for a heavy-duty pouch laminator capable of commercial volume laminating? Finding a good pouch laminator that will hold up under rigourous daily use is tough. Have you considered the Tamerica C-Lam 3306 pouch laminator? If not, here are a few reasons why you may want to use it.

The Tamerica C-Lam 3306 pouch laminator is a heavy-duty laminator that features a total of six rollers. In case you didn’t know, the more rollers the better. Four of the rollers are heated and two are cold. The heated rollers help evenly distribute heat, while the cold rollers help remove heat and smooth things out. The end result is a great looking finish.

Built in sensors help adjust the temperature of the rollers, making sure the heat doesn’t get too hot or too cold. This helps cut down on the need to run things through the laminator twice and prevents costly damage from badly laminated material. This also eliminates cloudiness and bubbles in the film.

If you need a fast laminator, the C-Lam 3306 is one of the fastest in its class. With many laminators, you sacrifice quality when you speed up the process. This is not the case with the C-Lam.

In order to save energy, the Tamerica C-Lam has an auto shut-off feature. This means if you leave the laminator unattended for more than 30 minutes, it will automatically shut off. This isn’t only good for safety, but also saves you on electricity.

The control interface is very easy to use. It is completely digital and allows you to set it up for use with a variety of different lamination films. The Tamerica C-Lam can be used with 3, 5, 7 and 10 mil thick films without a problem. It can also be used with glossy and matte film. The temperature on the C-Lam can also be adjusted to accommodate different types of film.

One of my favorite features of the Tamerica C-Lam is the ability to get to the rollers. The outer shell is easy to remove. This allows access to the six rollers. The top three rollers are on a hinge an can be lifted to gain easy access to the inside of the laminator. This is great for removing jams and for cleaning purposes.

If you need a tough reliable pouch laminator, you may want to consider using the Tamerica C-Lam 3306 laminating machine found here. The C-Lam is also available in an eight-roller system called the C-Lam 3308 found here. You can find our entire selection of pouch laminating machines here.

We’ve all been to restaurants and have all handled and used the menu. While not always the case, most restaurant menus consist of a single folded 11 x 17 sheet of paper or an 11 x 17 sheet of paper cut in half. Restaurant menus have soda spilled on them, dipping sauce smeared all over them, experience chicken wing accidents and much more. So how do menus endure daily abuse and use? They are laminated.

Laminating film makes a menu easy to clean off, prevents liquid damage and gives menus the rigidity they need to keep from tearing. So what are the best laminators to use for laminating a menu? There are two ways to do this. You will either want to use a pouch laminator or a roll laminating machine.

If you are using a pouch laminator, you will want to use a large 12 x 18 –inch pouch (found here). Place the printing menu inside the pouch and run it through the laminator. Once laminated, the menu can be creased or bound for use. Often times the menu isn’t folded or bound, but left as a single sheet. The slightly larger pouch will allow for a small overlapped border around the menu. If you don’t like this, it can be easily trimmed off.

If you are using a roll laminating machine, you can often laminate two menus simultaneously. This can be easily done if you are using a roll laminating machine that is 25-inches or wider. Once laminated, the menu can be trimmed down using a rotary trimmer. The most common roll film our customers use for menus can be found here.

Roll laminators are typically better for high-volume laminating, but I have found that more restaurants use a pouch laminator for menus.  The thickness of film used will depend on the restaurant’s preference. The higher the mil thickness, the thicker the film will be. A mil is one-thousandth of an inch. I probably wouldn’t go with anything thinner than 5 mils thick.

While not completely necessary, many of our customers also like to use a corner rounder to round the corners on the menus. This makes the menu less dangerous (pointy corners = ouch) and makes the menus look nice.

Here is a list of what you may need for your restaurant menu:

• Pouch Laminator or Roll Laminator
• Pouch Laminating Film or Roll Laminating Film
• Rotary Paper Trimmer
• Corner Rounder
• Paper Creaser

Good luck with your menus! We have a lot of people that do this, so don’t feel too overwhelmed. The end results will look great!

Pouch laminators protect, stabilize and preserve documents by using cheap and inexpensive laminating film. These useful little machines can be used by anyone and are commonly found in schools, homes, copy shops and other businesses. So which pouch laminator should you use? Have you considered the Banner American PL12A? If not, perhaps you should. Here’s why:

The PL12A is a time tested, widely used pouch laminator. In fact, the PL12A is one of the most popular laminators we offer. This compact laminator is 12-inches wide and can be used to laminate menus, photographs, business cards and more. It is designed for continuous use throughout the day and can be considered an commercial / industrial pouch laminator.

The build quality on the PL12A is really nice. The heating element holds up well over time, the rubber rollers don’t prematurely crack or dry out and the external shell does a good job of preventing injury. If for any reason the laminator needs to be disassembled, the outer shell can be easily removed.

The Banner American PL12A uses a four-roller system. These rollers help evenly distribute heat and pressure, which improves the laminating quality. Many laminators only feature two rollers, which often require multiple passes to finish the job.

The PL12A has an adjustable temperature control, which is nice when using laminating film of varying thicknesses. In fact, the PL12A can easily handle laminating film as thick as 10 mils. This laminator is also available with an optional thermometer for precise temperature control.

One of my favorite features is the separate motor and temperature control. Many laminators only have one button that turns the heat and motor on simultaneously. The PL12A has separate buttons. This allows you to keep the laminator conveniently heated without unnecessarily running the motor. This helps prolong the life of the motor.

One thing I would like to see in the PL12A is some sort of digital readout. This would be more for convenience. The design, however, has been time proven to be user friendly.

I have personally used this laminator many times and have to say that I highly recommend it. You can find the Banner American PL12A pouch laminator here. You can find our entire selection of pouch laminators here.

Fellowes is well known for making a wide variety of paper shredders, but did you know they make laminators too? One of Fellowes most popular pouch laminators is the Cosmic CL-95 personal pouch laminator. This laminator is capable of laminating documents up to 9 ½-inches wide, which means it is capable of handling standard 8 ½ x 11-inch paper. So is this the right laminator for you?

Let’s break down this laminator. First of all, it weighs about 6.6 pounds, which means it isn’t terribly heavy and can be carried around from one place to another without any problems. It also includes a handle. This means the Fellowes Cosmic CL-95 can easily be used in the office as well as at home.

This laminator isn’t going to break any records for speed, taking about one minute to laminate a sheet of paper. This shouldn’t be an issue, however, if you are only laminating a few documents throughout the day. I definitely wouldn’t rate this as a high-volume laminator. For the price you can’t really complain.

From the minute you plug in the CL-95, it takes about five minutes to completely warm up. This isn’t too bad. It uses HeatGuard technology as well, which means you shouldn’t have to worry about being burned while using this laminator.

The biggest pro that I have found with the Fellowes Cosmic CL-95 is that it has a release lever that disengages the rollers for easy re-positioning of material. If you have ever experienced a jam in a pouch laminator you’ll understand why this is so nice.

The biggest con I have with this laminator is that it can only used lamination pouches up to 3 mils thick. Most laminators can handle at least a 5 mil thick pouch. The thinner 3 mil pouches can be difficult to find as most smaller pouches are only available in 5, 7 and 10 mil thicknesses. The higher the mil (thousandths of an inch), the thicker the pouch.

My overall conclusion with the Fellowes Cosmic CL-95 is that it is good for low-volume lamination, but if the budget is there, another laminator may provide you with more flexibility. You will find our Fellowes Cosmic CL-95 personal pouch laminator here.

Good Alternatives to the Fellowes Cosmic CL-95:

• Sircle HQ-230 9″ Pouch Laminator
• Banner American PL100 Pouch Laminator
• Sircle HQ-330 13″ Pouch Laminator
• Sircle SG-230 9″ Pouch Laminator

Our entire selection of pouch laminators can be found here.

So you’re in the market for lamination film, but don’t know exactly what to get. Well, you’ve stumbled upon the right place. I can help you out with that. Once you learn the laminating film ropes, it shouldn’t be too hard to isolate exactly what you need. I will be discussing the most common type of lamination film referred to as thermal or hot lamination. Here are a few questions you will want to ask yourself prior to purchasing laminating film.

What type of laminator do you have?

The two main types of laminators are pouch and roll laminators. To see an example of what these look like, you will find pouch laminators here and roll laminators here.

Both types of laminators use different types of film. Pouch laminators use “folder-like” pouches that open up and allow you to place your document inside. Roll laminators use two separate rolls of film to laminate a document, using a top and a bottom roll.

Both of these laminators use heat to activate the glue. Once warm, the glue sticks to the document. The glue is designed to stick to documents without damaging them. After the glue cools down, it is clear and transparent.

What type of film would you like to use?

The most common type of laminating film is clear glossy film. This film has a shiny clear finish and looks great. The second most common type of film is matte lamination film. Matte film has a dull finish and does not reflect light like the glossy film.

Additional types of film include UV film and low melt film. UV film blocks out ultraviolet rays from the sun and prevents fading (for outdoor use). Low melt film uses glue that requires less heat to activate. Low melt film is good for temperature sensitive documents.

What thickness of film does your laminator use?

The thickness of laminating film, in the U.S., is referred to as a mil. A mil is a thousandth of an inch. The higher the number, the thicker the film. Most pouch and roll laminators can handle film up to 5 mils thick. If you would like to use 7 or 10 mil film, you will need to reference your machine’s manual to see if this is an option.

Where can you find laminating film?

You can find our pouch laminating film here and our roll laminating film here.

Still have questions? Call us at 1-800-658-8788 or post a comment here.

Lamination carriers have been around for decades and are nothing new to the lamination industry. How are they used? After placing your document in a lamination pouch, the pouch is then placed in a carrier prior to being run through a pouch laminator.

What’s the main purpose of a carrier? The main purpose is to provide the pouch with added support, preventing wraparounds and jams, as well as preventing hot glue from squeezing out onto silicon rollers and other important pouch laminator components.

Many of the newer pouch laminators claim they can laminate without the use of a carrier. While this may be true, I personally recommend still using a carrier. This isn’t because I want you to purchase more carriers, after all, most lamination pouches come with carriers. It is because I personally believe that carriers will extend the life of your laminator.

Even though newer laminators may be less prone to jams, the pouch still gets hot and hot glue still squeezes out of the sides of the pouch as pressure is applied. This glue can still get on rubber rollers inside the machine and decrease the effectiveness of your laminator.

HELPFUL LINKS & TIPS:

Have a laminator that needs to be repaired? Consider using our Service Department. You can reach them by calling 1-800-658-8788 x129.

You can find our entire selection of lamination pouches here.

You can find replacement lamination carriers here.

Pouch laminators come in all shapes and sizes. If you have ever read our laminator guide (found here), you will know that laminators come in different sizes, with different amounts of rollers and different features. Finding the best laminator can be difficult, and nobody wants to buy a laminator that will die a few months later.

We have been selling laminators since 1980, and have received a lot of feedback during the last few years regarding reliable laminators. We have taken this data and feedback and have compiled a list of highly reliable and durable pouch laminators that shouldn’t give you a headache.

Some laminators are not featured in this list because we haven’t had them online long enough to tell whether or not they are “list worthy” (Sircle and Fellowes). As part of an effort to offer you, the customer, the best product, we try to remove unreliable laminators (and products) from our site if the don’t meat our quality guidelines. With that in mind, here is our list of the top seven pouch laminators according to our customers.

Top 7 Best Pouch Laminators

1. Banner American PL12A Pouch Laminator
2. Banner American PL4A Pouch Laminator
3. Banner American PL135-4 Pouch Laminator
4. Tahsin TCC-330 Pouch Laminator
5. Akiles Pro-Lam 100 Pouch Laminator
6. Akiles Pro-Lam Plus 330 Pouch Laminator
7. Big Mouth Pouch Laminator