@ircon96 Tacklife is the swiftly cooling debris cloud from the explosion of their former Amazon star. They made nothing;all of their merch was generic goods carrying their brand. Much of it appears to have been decent.
@werehatrack Not doubting you, but just curious where you found mention of that pouch thickness limitation—my blind eyes couldn’t find it in Meh’s text?
@Seeds@Kerig3@werehatrack Link to Amazon product is for a slightly different machine (7-1 version), but answers from supplier in questions says it does up to 3 mil thick pouches, which is the minimum needed. Still flimsy, 5 mil is preferred (usually ID tags are 5 mil) unless you’re just sticking things on the fridge.
Looks the 7-1 version can do 11x17, which is nice, nit clear if this 5-1 versions can do them,
@Kerig3 It was buried in the verbiage of an old listing on a different site. That was the only place I could come up with it. I verified it by finding another one that is still listed on Amazon that actually gives the spec for an identical unit, and it had the same numbers.
If you follow the link to the WM item, they actually list this:
heat bags with a diameter of 0.075 mm and 0.125 mm are available for filling.
(OTOH, hopefully they mean thickness, NOT diameter)
0.075 mm is aprox 3mil, and 0.125 mm is approx 5 mil. As for .5mm not being suitable for stiff laminations, as mentioned, that would be almost 20 mil and would certainly be plenty stiff.
The confusion between mil and mm is an old one and has been a PITA for a long time.
@chienfou@Kerig3@scottsai@Seeds@stolicat The error is in the statement that the laminator’s capacity of the pouch alone is 0.5mm (20 mil); that’s the maximum thickness of pouch plus laminated item. Some of mine hit close to 0.8mm (32 mil), which my old Ibico does not complain about, and my Fellows will seal in two to four passes as long as the laminated item itself is not more than about 50% of the total thickness. If there’s too much of a disparity, the edges don’t get enough pressure.
Business/industrial models generally have a higher clamping force with more resilient rollers so that the edges get clamped and sealed properly. The finicky nature of lamination is part of the reason that most businesses that use ID badges now print them direct onto plastic blanks. I’ve occasionally seen that for trade shows in the past few years, too.
Most of the pouches I use are 10 mil (0.25mm), which is twice the thickness that is in the specs for the similar (identical maybe?) models listed in various places. My Fellows is only rated for 7 mil, but I’ve run 10 mil through it via the multi-pass method lots of times. Since the Tacklife units run slow and apparently have a quick-response thermostat, I suspect I could probably get away with a bit of over-thickness stuff…
@mehmoth@mrchristian Most pouches I’ve bought were supplied with the corners already rounded, but when you need to cut one down for a smaller item, the corner rounding nipper is usually going to give a more uniform result than doing it with scissors.
@Jonas4321 use to be faster but people kept leaving negative reviews because they didn’t have time for selfies and tik toks of all the hard work they were doing.
@BIGRHAWQS@Jonas4321 Unless you’re trying to do something that requires speed, like keeping up with the flow of badges for attendees arriving for a large event, the rate’s not necessarily a disadvantage. My experience with laminators has been that the ones which run fastest generally tend to leave the most air pockets, and do the worst job sealing hot pouches all the way in to the margin of the document.
More similar item: 9 Inch 5 in 1 Laminator Machine for A4, Cold & Hot Laminator Machine with Laminator Sheers, Paper Trimmer and Corner Rounder for Home Office School Use https://a.co/d/8fSc6k6
For comparison; My ancient Gordon 9 inch hot laminator model 92499 from Harbor Freight takes more than 4 minutes to warm up. It didn’t include any accessories other than nine 9x12" pouches. I have a mostly full box of 25, which should last me a few more years.
I use a pair of scissors to round off the corners.
I have a hand operated paper cutter with a removable finger guard. I remember seeing teachers that were missing fingers because the finger guards were a new thing when I went to grade school. Needless to say, I leave the finger guard installed.
It looks like Harbor Freight stopped selling them long ago. There are several used ones available on eBay.
Coincidentally, my wife asked me to laminate something today. So I got it out and timed it warming up.
First, the paper trimmer/cutter:
The cutter tends to skip unless you hold the slider down very firmly, and the predictability of where the cut will land is not as precise as some might want, but it’s not horrible by any means. Stiffer and thicker materials (up to the thickness of the pouches supplied) tend to cut more cleanly than a single sheet of budget-quality office printer paper. Be aware that you probably want to get your document prep done before you turn on the machine; the top plate gets uncomfortably warm when the laminator is running in hot mode. The cutter head is stated as having a non-serviceable cutter blade, so that when it gets dull, the entire sliding head must be replaced. Since Tacklife does not appear to be responding to requests for information, the availability of the cutter heads may be zero.
Next, the corner nipper:
This gets stashed in a recess on the bottom of the unit, facing the exit side of the laminator. The instruction manual for the laminator says nothing about either its presence or its use. It makes a small corner radius cut when the top is mashed; just ordinary finger pressure is all that’s needed. It takes some practice and fiddling to figure out exactly where the item must be positioned in the V-shaped notch in order to get that cutter to nip it, so be prepared to think it doesn’t work at first.
Then the laminator, in hot mode:
Although the hard-to-find specs indicate that this is best suited to use with really thin, lightweight pouches, it handled a 10 mil (0.25mm) pouch containing a 3x5 index card satisfactorily. That’s twice the rated pouch thickness, and greater than the total supported item thickness, so it’s better than advertised in that respect. (I would not try to laminate a stroopwafel, though; that’s undoubtedly pushing it too far.) The claimed warm-up time of 40 seconds was not observed; it took closer to 140 seconds, or two minutes and twenty seconds. The speed of lamination was pretty close to the stated spec.
Overall, I judge this unit to be worth the $25 asking price from this deal, for users who need a laminator for occasional use.
What the hell? I got this product then found out that I also got a monthly $6.95 for some program called MERCATALTX?? No instructions on how to stop payments or opt out or anything. BS add on and I now what they will say about it . . . MEH!
@BoxL1 Go up to the top of this page, click on “Account” and then “Your account”, scroll down to “Memebrship” and click on “Edit” over on the right. You can cancel the membership there.
Specs
What’s Included?
Price Comparison
$59.99 (for similar) at Amazon
OOS at Walmart
Warranty
90 days
Estimated Delivery
Monday, Dec 12 - Tuesday, Dec 13
LaMEHnator.
@yakkoTDI I read that as Lamenhater. Lol
@Steficake @yakkoTDI I read it as LAME-enator
@jsh139 @Steficake @yakkoTDI No lamb-henator? (A device for morphing very young sheep into poultry.)
I was 40 second (out of 50).
If I needed to luminate pictures, I will just shine a light on them. No need for some fancy machine.
@hchavers That one was pretty lume, even for you.
@hchavers What did Lumin eat?
@awk @hchavers My guess is the livers of her victims with some fava beans and a nice Chianti…?
@awk @hchavers @ircon96 Would that be Silence of the Laminators?
@mehcuda67
/giphy rimshot
not as enthusiastic as I would have liked, but I DO like the gif so… there it is!
@awk @hchavers @mehcuda67 Well played, I do so love a groaner of a pun!
Is Tacklife the new Acme? It seems like they make everything.
@ircon96 They are the new Blitz Wolf.
@ircon96 Tacklife is the swiftly cooling debris cloud from the explosion of their former Amazon star. They made nothing;all of their merch was generic goods carrying their brand. Much of it appears to have been decent.
@yakkoTDI
@ircon96
Asian
Company that
Makes
Everything
Today I learned there’s such a thing as cold laminating.
@Bretterson
Yeah, me too! Well, it was really last week the first time we saw this being offered in the mehrathon!
@Bretterson Same, except I learned that there’s such a thing as hot laminating.
Meh, keepin’ it random.
I do need a paper cutter though, one of those old-school guillotine things. You got any in the back?
@awk
MORE like randomly repeating!
Yes those old school guillotine ones were pretty fantastic, and I’d buy one in a heartbeat!
@awk @Lynnerizer I have three of those old swinging-knife cutters, and a real printer’s 23"-throat guillotine. The latter weighs about 400 lbs.
@awk @Lynnerizer @werehatrack No offense, but I’m steering clear of @werehatrack
@awk @gertiestn @Lynnerizer @werehatrack The swinging knife one was used very effectively in the scifi movie,“The Faculty.”
@awk @werehatrack
Your house must be like the roach motel, you go in but never come out! Lol
@awk @werehatrack
Maximum lamination pouch thickness 0.5mm, not useful if you need ID badge (or similar) stiffness.
@werehatrack thanks- you just saved me 25 bucks
@werehatrack Not doubting you, but just curious where you found mention of that pouch thickness limitation—my blind eyes couldn’t find it in Meh’s text?
@Seeds @Kerig3 @werehatrack Link to Amazon product is for a slightly different machine (7-1 version), but answers from supplier in questions says it does up to 3 mil thick pouches, which is the minimum needed. Still flimsy, 5 mil is preferred (usually ID tags are 5 mil) unless you’re just sticking things on the fridge.
Looks the 7-1 version can do 11x17, which is nice, nit clear if this 5-1 versions can do them,
@Kerig3 It was buried in the verbiage of an old listing on a different site. That was the only place I could come up with it. I verified it by finding another one that is still listed on Amazon that actually gives the spec for an identical unit, and it had the same numbers.
@werehatrack
Thanks.
@werehatrack I was just thinking maybe we could use it to laminate those endless stroopwafels. Good to know that’s not even an option.
@werehatrack according to my calc 0.5mm = 19.7 mil, units are mixed in comments below. mm ≠ mil, 20 mil is just shy of 7 paper thickness!
@ravenblack @werehatrack
Laminated stroopwaffles would make decent ornaments.
@scottsai @werehatrack @kerig3 @stolicat @seeds
As mentioned by @scottsai above, the original comment is not correct. a mil is 1/1000 of an inch, a mm is 1/1000 of a meter.
If you follow the link to the WM item, they actually list this:
(OTOH, hopefully they mean thickness, NOT diameter)
0.075 mm is aprox 3mil, and 0.125 mm is approx 5 mil. As for .5mm not being suitable for stiff laminations, as mentioned, that would be almost 20 mil and would certainly be plenty stiff.
The confusion between mil and mm is an old one and has been a PITA for a long time.
@chienfou @Kerig3 @scottsai @Seeds @stolicat The error is in the statement that the laminator’s capacity of the pouch alone is 0.5mm (20 mil); that’s the maximum thickness of pouch plus laminated item. Some of mine hit close to 0.8mm (32 mil), which my old Ibico does not complain about, and my Fellows will seal in two to four passes as long as the laminated item itself is not more than about 50% of the total thickness. If there’s too much of a disparity, the edges don’t get enough pressure.
Business/industrial models generally have a higher clamping force with more resilient rollers so that the edges get clamped and sealed properly. The finicky nature of lamination is part of the reason that most businesses that use ID badges now print them direct onto plastic blanks. I’ve occasionally seen that for trade shows in the past few years, too.
Most of the pouches I use are 10 mil (0.25mm), which is twice the thickness that is in the specs for the similar (identical maybe?) models listed in various places. My Fellows is only rated for 7 mil, but I’ve run 10 mil through it via the multi-pass method lots of times. Since the Tacklife units run slow and apparently have a quick-response thermostat, I suspect I could probably get away with a bit of over-thickness stuff…
/showme Laminator for Office/Home Use, banana for scale
@awk Wow, the bot’s bananas are starting to look like real ones!
@awk @ircon96 It has been getting lots of practice lately.
spent all my money on the worthless $50 irk
@outz Sounds like you got your money’s worth though, the regret is setting in perfectly! AND, it’s even sooner than you probably expected!
@Lynnerizer haha for sure! it’s gonna cause me to spend less for quite a while. regret for all!
Hell it’s usually sale leftovers in the mehathon, this go around seems to be mehathon leftovers in the sales.
wth is a beauty cutter?
(assuming not a model in need of mental health treatment)
@mrchristian I think they’re referring to the Corner Rounder thingamabob. It does make the corners more attractive and less ninja star(ish)
@mehmoth @mrchristian Most pouches I’ve bought were supplied with the corners already rounded, but when you need to cut one down for a smaller item, the corner rounding nipper is usually going to give a more uniform result than doing it with scissors.
1 minute 13 seconds for a standard 12 inch lamination pouch is freaking SLOW.
@Jonas4321 use to be faster but people kept leaving negative reviews because they didn’t have time for selfies and tik toks of all the hard work they were doing.
@BIGRHAWQS @Jonas4321 Unless you’re trying to do something that requires speed, like keeping up with the flow of badges for attendees arriving for a large event, the rate’s not necessarily a disadvantage. My experience with laminators has been that the ones which run fastest generally tend to leave the most air pockets, and do the worst job sealing hot pouches all the way in to the margin of the document.
More similar item: 9 Inch 5 in 1 Laminator Machine for A4, Cold & Hot Laminator Machine with Laminator Sheers, Paper Trimmer and Corner Rounder for Home Office School Use https://a.co/d/8fSc6k6
@justs OH MY GOD THEY LAMINATED A KITTEN!
Oh, wait, it’s just a picture of a kitten.
Kittens, banana for scale:
For comparison; My ancient Gordon 9 inch hot laminator model 92499 from Harbor Freight takes more than 4 minutes to warm up. It didn’t include any accessories other than nine 9x12" pouches. I have a mostly full box of 25, which should last me a few more years.
I use a pair of scissors to round off the corners.
I have a hand operated paper cutter with a removable finger guard. I remember seeing teachers that were missing fingers because the finger guards were a new thing when I went to grade school. Needless to say, I leave the finger guard installed.
It looks like Harbor Freight stopped selling them long ago. There are several used ones available on eBay.
Coincidentally, my wife asked me to laminate something today. So I got it out and timed it warming up.
I don’t have a laminator. I don’t remember the last time I needed a laminator.
Sounds like something I need to buy.
@OnionSoup
You (and I) DEFINITELY match the meh core demographic!
@OnionSoup I feel both seen and attacked.
Also the only real hold up is that I’m not sure where I would store it, and this fills me with both pride and shame.
@azfang I plan to store mine on my wife’s desk. She doesn’t know this yet.
@OnionSoup Does she look skeptical when you giver her nice cordless power tools?
And now, a Product Review.
First, the paper trimmer/cutter:
The cutter tends to skip unless you hold the slider down very firmly, and the predictability of where the cut will land is not as precise as some might want, but it’s not horrible by any means. Stiffer and thicker materials (up to the thickness of the pouches supplied) tend to cut more cleanly than a single sheet of budget-quality office printer paper. Be aware that you probably want to get your document prep done before you turn on the machine; the top plate gets uncomfortably warm when the laminator is running in hot mode. The cutter head is stated as having a non-serviceable cutter blade, so that when it gets dull, the entire sliding head must be replaced. Since Tacklife does not appear to be responding to requests for information, the availability of the cutter heads may be zero.
Next, the corner nipper:
This gets stashed in a recess on the bottom of the unit, facing the exit side of the laminator. The instruction manual for the laminator says nothing about either its presence or its use. It makes a small corner radius cut when the top is mashed; just ordinary finger pressure is all that’s needed. It takes some practice and fiddling to figure out exactly where the item must be positioned in the V-shaped notch in order to get that cutter to nip it, so be prepared to think it doesn’t work at first.
Then the laminator, in hot mode:
Although the hard-to-find specs indicate that this is best suited to use with really thin, lightweight pouches, it handled a 10 mil (0.25mm) pouch containing a 3x5 index card satisfactorily. That’s twice the rated pouch thickness, and greater than the total supported item thickness, so it’s better than advertised in that respect. (I would not try to laminate a stroopwafel, though; that’s undoubtedly pushing it too far.) The claimed warm-up time of 40 seconds was not observed; it took closer to 140 seconds, or two minutes and twenty seconds. The speed of lamination was pretty close to the stated spec.
Overall, I judge this unit to be worth the $25 asking price from this deal, for users who need a laminator for occasional use.
@werehatrack So you bought it?
@Kyeh Yeah, I kinda did, partly to just see if it was any good. It’s better than I expected. So I posted a review.
@werehatrack Well, that’s good! I don’t plan to buy one even if it comes up again, but for anyone who was on the fence, this is helpful.
Jammed on my first document, cannot remove the plastic
What the hell? I got this product then found out that I also got a monthly $6.95 for some program called MERCATALTX?? No instructions on how to stop payments or opt out or anything. BS add on and I now what they will say about it . . . MEH!
@BoxL1 Go up to the top of this page, click on “Account” and then “Your account”, scroll down to “Memebrship” and click on “Edit” over on the right. You can cancel the membership there.
Disclaimer: I am not a Meh employee.