Homebrew PCBs

I recently bought this falambi laminator and wanted to share my experiences with this unit.
This is directed more to the european crowd as I dont know if this model or some clones are avaliable overseas.

Its a Falambi A3 HD 320 as found here:  http://www.falambi.de/laminiergeraete/laminatoren-falambi-bestpreisartikel/1028/foto-laminiergeraet-320-metall-din-a3?c=1976545

The retail price is a bit higher than the cheap plastic units, but these pop up new on a regular basis on ebay here and go for a price from 40-60€. I got mine from ebay for 52€.

What I liked:

- It needs NO modification to work. 

- Designed to take 1.2mm + 2x 175 mil foil = 1,5mm! Takes regular 1,5mm board without creaking, groaning or pushing.

- Variable Temperature from 100-200°C

- All metal construction, the only plastic parts are the gears(would have liked these to be metal also but...)

- Indirect heating like in the GBC laminators a la "chicken rotisserie cooker" style

- 4 rollers, so if I damage the front rollers by accidental overheating (well thats not the plan ! :))I can easily swap them.

- roller pressure adjustable to some drgree via screw/spring assembly so it could be modified to take even thicker stuff (not tested so far)

- Can be easily modified to higher temperature by moving the temp sensor a little backwards from the rollers. You just have to loosen 2 screws and adjust the sensor holder (has 2 elongated holes for this) 

What I did not like:

- the all metal case is not grounded

- no variable speed (this would make it almost perfect for my needs) but 3-4 passes do the trick

- actual temperature was about 10°C off at the rollers on independent measuring. This was easily fixed by adjusting the sensor position. On the first try I moved the sensor a little bit too much backwards and it went to 230°C No Idea what these silicone rollers can take so I went for 200°max. Usually with my setup a temp between 180-190 gives perfect results.

Summary:
I dont know If I would have paid full retail price on this unit but I am very happy with it at what I was able to get it for. I could have gotten 2 cheaper units for this price but these would have to be modded and I am fairly confident that this one will outlive 2 of the cheaper ones.


The next choke point to tackle is now my old HP jaserjet with only 600 dpi resolution....

Regards