Cheap and Good Laminator for Toner Transfer

[CraigHB]

I tried an inexpensive laminator solution for toner transfer today and I'm really happy with it so I thought I would post about it.

I started with one of these then pulled out the heater/roller assembly. I just chucked the rest. I wired up the motor and heater straight to mains power. The heater/roller has a little thermostatic switch on the bottom wired in-line with the heating element. That switch is actually a safety, but it cycles the heater right around 170 degrees Celsius. Gets the rollers the perfect temp for toner transfer in about 2 minutes, a little over 300F or 150C. I measured that manually with my DMM temp probe.

I'm getting amazing transfers with it. The unit does get as hot as it can handle so I don't know how long it's going to last. The ends of the heater/roller assembly are high temp plastic so the roller bearings might wear out fast running at maximum tolerable temp.

I also pulled the upper plate for the output tray from the heater/roller assembly. Just had to loosen up one of the ends. It looked a little tight for a PCB so I just removed the upper plate.

I also discovered the paper from my wife's Elle Magazine works amazing. They must use some kind of water base finish on the paper because it lifts right off in warm water without touching a thing.

I think my PCB making has just improved 100% between the laminator and Elle magazine.

 

[duffy]

Wow, $19, that's the cheapest I've ever seen. Most people don't realize there's a huge improvement in quality using one of these instead of a hand iron. Issues with even pressure, even heating, and eliminating that back-and-forth "scrubbing" motion make quite a difference.

 

[CraigHB]

That's with free shipping too. At that price, you could buy two of them and it will still be cheap.

The laminator definitely works much better than the iron. With the iron, I'd get sections of toner that didn't stick to the PCB well and would have to touch up chipped areas with a sharpie. Don't have that problem with the laminator. Though, you do need to run the board through a couple three times, it's not a one pass thing. Still a lot faster and more reliable than monkeying around with an iron.