July 30th, 2011 Choosing Between A Hot Laminator And A Cold Laminator
If you’re familiar with laminating machines, you’ll know these office equipment are useful for covering important documents, photos, business cards, certificates, diplomas, identification badges, and other paper items with a shield of hard plastic. These laminating machines guarantee that documents are well-preserved from water damage, tears, termites, crumpling, and in some cases, even fire.
There are two types of laminating machines: the hot laminator and the cold laminator. You can find either of these types of laminators at a lot of companies where crucial documents are processed on a daily basis, and where a laminating machine is useful for preserving business document quality.
Laminators are very convenient to have, not only in the office, but also at home, where you may have a host of documents you want to protect by covering them with hard plastic, something a laminator machine can do very easily.
If you have a lot of documents you want to safeguard and are thinking of purchasing a laminator, you’ll have a choice between hot laminators or a cold one, so it can be something of mystery as to which lamination machine is ideal for your needs.
Here are some considerations to help you choose between a hot or thermal laminator and a cold laminator:
• Available supplies – to operate a laminator, you’ll need plastic laminating pouches to cover your documents in. Find out about the availability of plastic pouches in different sizes for both hot and cold laminators in your area. Thermal pouches are plentiful, but cold laminating supplies are sometimes limited in terms of size.
• Time element – if you are a very busy person and don’t want to stand around waiting for your hot roll laminator to heat up, a cold laminating machine would be the better choice for you since there won’t be any warm-up time required. Hot laminators can take as much as 10 minutes of warm-up time before they’ll be ready to take your document and seal it in hard plastic.
• Cost considerations – there are so many different models and sizes of hot and cold laminators that come with a variety of price tags, depending on brand, features, and versatility. However, when compared across the board, hot laminators usually cost more than the cold varieties since they’re more expensive to produce. The price difference isn’t such a huge one, but its still there, nonetheless. On the other hand, supplies for a cold laminator machine are more expensive compared to supplies for a hot roll laminator, so a cold laminator will eventually cost you more money in the long term.
• Items you’ll be laminating – consider the size of the documents you’ll be laminating. Larger materials like posters will require a hot roll laminator. On the other hand, documents and photographs printed on water-based ink won’t stand up to hot laminator processing, and may be damaged by the heat, in which case a cold one is best.
Once you’ve looked through all these considerations, you’ll be better informed about the choices you can make when purchasing a hot or cold laminator one to preserve important documents and keepsakes.
