Has any one thought of using a Small Cast Iron Flat Plate Electric Contact Grill (Small). I have dropped into the second hand stores looking for one. If I find one and the price is good I think i will give it a try. Amazon has a Electric Stainless Steel Panini Press with Adjustable Temperature Settings ($60) not much more then a laminator. (they are 20 by 30 in). Or maybe I should buy the wife a Cricut shirt, Easy heat Press. and try that.
I think they might work but the results may not be satisfying. I bought two cheap laminators with the intention of modifying them with an Arduino to increase and automate their temperature setting and motor movements. I admired Paul and his ability to convert an old laminator into something that worked so perfectly, but I live in Japan and don’t have access to an infinite supply of parts like he does, so my chances of success were limited at best. But not having a laminator or some other device had completely stopped me from building any of his designs.
Then came this forum and two people in this thread, cmulcihy and Larry_N7LUF, found a laminator on Amazon that looked like it would work right out of the box. Amazon wouldn’t send it to me in Japan so I ordered a similar one from eBay (see link below) and yes, it does work, but not without some work on my end.
On the plus side it has:
- Keavy all metal case construction.
- Reasonable cost ($70.30).
- Metal gears on motor end (plastic gears on opposite end).
- Four rollers.
- Switchable feed direction FWD and REV.
- Analog temperature meter.
- Adjustable temp to 200 deg C via pot (very smooth).
- Adjustable roller tension screws accessible from the bottom without taking the covers off.
- Very quiet in operation.
- Works fine on a Variac.
On the minus side:
- Metal top cover gets quite hot to the touch.
- Motor was mounted misaligned or came misaligned in shipping.
- Diode temperature sensor was slightly misaligned.
- Flimsy meter mount.
- Two washers missing.
Mine took over a month to arrive but it had gone from China to Florida to Japan and probably got a bit bounced around in the process. Before powering it up I removed the covers and found the heavy motor was misaligned by a good 10 degrees; the temperature sensor (a diode) was not making proper contact with the rollers; the flimsy metal mount the analog temperature meter sat on was badly bent in multiple places; and the nuts and bolts holding the meter in place did not come with washers. All problems were easily fixed, though, and I was up and running in half an hour. I have to use a Variac to go from 100V 50 Hz to 120V 50Hz but it works fine and the slightly slower motor speed will probably help bond the toner better.
I think mine is a licensed copy of a Vevor product, or maybe it’s unlicensed as there’s no brand name. Typical Chinese construction, whatever it is. However it looks much more solid than the two plastic home laminators I bought before. I haven’t made any circuit boards with it yet, (too busy) but will shortly.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/315138111072
@kaf I’m not sure if you still can buy it, but in the past you could buy a Kit to MOD your Apache AL13P (or similar laminator). However, the mod can be built (@Home) with the exact same results as the documentation is freely available on Hackaday :
https://hackaday.io/project/3363-apache-al13p-tl-320b-one-pass-pcb-toner-xfer
If you have the “Know How” you could in “theory” adapt it to “virtually” any other Laminator. Of course the “adaptation process and requirements” of the documented (Hackaday) MOD for other Laminators depends on the topology of each individual laminator that one might have.
After stripping the gears of my cheap laminator, and having been truly disappointed with it’s lousy transfer results, I searched and found one exactly like this one currently listed on ebay. You can find these with various brand names. Just search for “model 5000” laminator and different brands of this exact unit will come up. I linked this because it has great pictures showing the details and features. The price of this one seems high, probably because of the accessories included. I paid $40 for mine used but fully working. I love it. It’s plug and play. I did not have to modify anything. It has a thermometer and it is designed so you can set the temp easily with a screwdriver. It’s spring drives are such that it will accommodate double sided pcb boards as is. The only constraint is the max width. So far I’ve done Ultra Probe, Forcasting Cap Tester, Super Probe with no issues. Also helpful is switching to the special yellow laser transfer paper that is thin and glossy on one side. I set my laser printer to a resolution or 300 dpi, and high black density. Then I run the boards through this laminator 6 or 8 times, flipping it over. The transfer is total, with no toner left on the surface of the yellow sheet and very clean toner on the board. The paper releases very easily when it’s cooled off.
@pauleisenberg Well, looks cool in pictures. Kind of solid and sturdy looking unit. I like the form factor.
So what’s the temperature you’ve set the device at ?
It should be set to around 200 degrees Celsius (That is about 392 Fahrenheit) or thereabout.
@ovi4 yes, around 390f I think. I’ll need to go check it. It’s do Carlson’s stuff so far. I haven’t tried any big boards. These are on ebay if you search for laminator model 5000, you’ll see a wide range of branding, and wide range of pricing. They are solid little machines built to last.
@ovi4 I set it at the 200C, but it will go higher some.
Not sure how good it would be over 200C, but that was sure hot.
I am really happy with it.
Only problem is the lid over the rollers really get hot to 200C and burned my finger, so be aware.
Larry – N7LUF
Followed this mod of an APACHE. Works great right out of the box! Found mine on ebay. Also sourced a lexmark printer too.
All files and howto pics are there too.
Someone else on here mentioned it too but I bought a Tamerica SM-330 a few years ago off of eBay and it’s worked perfectly for PCBs with no modifications. At the time it was the recommended laminator for PCBs by “PCB fab-in-a-box” looks like that site is gone now but my laminator still works! I think using an older laser printer is important too, mine’s a HP2300.
@larry_n7luf I shipped off the PCB, built and flashed the 12F675 MCU with LAM_MOD_V2_1.Hex Here it’s working on demo. Have several extra PCB’s if you would like to build the kit. Can also flash 12F675’s on request. See README.PDF
@larry_n7luf that was such a cool project. Got to brush up on macro assembly, learned how to compile to hex code file and the setup a protoboard and flash the MCU. Now with one click my AL13P does reverse a little less than forward applying the toner transfer method.
@stevokeano Does it reverse and forward by itself?
The Vevor does have a forward and reverse, but I have to make the change.
Larry – N7LUF
@larry_n7luf does now! The youtube shows it in action. Go fullscreen.