GBC Ultima 65 27″ School Laminator Product Review
The GBC Ultima 65 is a 27″ roll laminator that is primarily used by
schools, quick printers, daycares, churches and pre-schools. In fact,
it is the most popular roll laminator used in the United States.
Chances are, if you go into a school and ask them what type of laminator that they have they will tell you that it is an Ultima65.
However, just because a lot of people use it doesn’t mean that it will
be a good fit for you. This review will look at the features,
limitations and construction of the GBC Ultima 65 roll laminator .
Features:
One of the best features of the Ulitma 65 is that it is capable of
handling laminating rolls up to 27 inches in width. Film is loaded onto
the machine in pairs of matched rolls of laminate. The Ultima65 is
incredibly versatile and includes the ability to accept rolls as narrow
as 9″ in width and as wide a 27 inches. Most users choose a 25″ wide
roll for this laminator. However, special projects may warrant a
different width of laminate.
This machine is capable of accepting 1.2mil, 1.5mil, 1.7mil and 3mil laminating films . However, most users choose either a 1.5mil or a 3mil
film for their machine. The most common film for this machine is a 25″
x 500′ roll of 1.5mil film (GBC Part number 3000004). This is worth
noting since this particular size of roll is usually more cost
effective to run since it is more popular and produced in greater
quantities. However, if you are looking for a more premium look and
feel for your laminated documents you might consider moving up to a
3mil film.
The Ultima 65 also includes a reverse feature to help with potential
film jams. It also includes a convenient trimmer on the back of the
machine to help you quickly and easily cut your laminated materials
away from the machine (you will still need to trim the laminated
materials with a pair of scissors or zippy knife after they are removed
from the laminator).
Even though these are great features it is important to note that most
schools and companies don’t buy the machine because it is incredibly
feature rich. Instead it is the most popular machine on the market
because it one of the simplest to operate. It has an easy to use
intuitive keypad without a lot of confusing buttons and knobs. Many
other laminators require you to adjust the heat and speed and to get
the setting just right. However, the Ultima65 is designed for teachers
and parent volunteers who rarely use a laminator and don’t have a lot
of training.
Limitations:
The Ultima is designed for laminating banners, signs, visual aids and
documents. It does all of these things very well. However, there are
some things that it does not do. It will not accept laminating films
that are thicker than 3mil. If you think that you might need to use a
5mil or 10mil film then this machine won’t be a good fit for you. It is
also limited to a one inch core size. This means that the cardboard
core that the film is wrapped around has to be 1″ in diameter. This
limitation essentially eliminates the ability to run specialty
laminating films since they are usually only available on 2.25″ and 3″
cores.
The Ultima65 is also not equipped for doing mounting (the rollers
cannot be gapped) and is not a good solution for doing cold process
lamination. If you need to do any of these things then you will most
likely need to move up to the next level of laminator available on the
market (probably the GBC Catena 65). This isn’t to say that the Ultima
is a bad machine; on the contrary, it does exactly what it is supposed
to do. It just isn’t designed for professional and specialty
applications.
There were two other things that I noticed when I was testing this
machine. First, it has a very long warm up time. In fact it can take
10-15 minutes to warm up. If you are standing by the laminator waiting
to laminate something this can be very painful. Thus, it is a good idea
to turn the machine on well before you are ready to start. Second, I
found switching the laminating film to be somewhat difficult on this
machine. Every time I go to switch the film I end up having to pull out
the instructions and look at the diagrams. However, if you end up
loading the film backwards you can end up with a huge mess. This just
means that you are going to want to make sure that you are very careful
when loading the machine.
Construction:
The Ultima 65 is built well and is designed for daily use in a school
environment. The sides are plastic, the frame and the feed tray are
metal. However, the most common problems with this machine usually are
caused by users and not design issues. Items that are textured, contain
glitter or are sharp should never be loaded into the laminator as they
can damage the rollers. Additionally, the film should never be run
backwards or with only one roll on the machine this will cause the film
to stick to the rollers. Sharp objects should never be used to clean
the rollers (using a 3M scotch bright scouring pad is the recommended
method for cleaning the rollers). Other than that, the machine is
highly durable and if it does have problems, parts are readily
available.
Recommendation:
For a school, pre-school or church I would highly recommend the Ultima
65. It is incredibly simple to use, doesn’t require a lot of
maintenance and is a cost effective solution. However, for users who
need a laminator for specialty applications this is probably not the
right fit.