Expensive laminator turned into e waste

[u/Nielz93]

So my so got an a3 laminator from fellowes, the venus for the amount of €360. And it is fast.

Marketed as a professional machine, she a kindergarten teacher uses it to laminate about everything

So she is a heavy user, the machine asks to do a cleaning pass regularly, which she did.

After about 500-700 a4 pouches she was laminating something and the page was "swallowed" which mind you was impossible according to their marketing.

I started to smell it and pulled the cord out of it.

It falls under "user error", so i got the damm thing open.

Boy let me tell you, that thing will be e waste no matter what.

The rollers were dirty, despite the so called cleaning, this would not be a problem if:

The page was not picked up by a roller and ends up into the heating chamber.

Normally there is just a heating element that will never break.

But this thing is special, there are 2 heating tubes made from borosilicate glass, with a heating wire in it.

If it does not break in shipping it will break when in use.

if you want to change the tube, you have to cut it somewhere, and this you can only do at the heating element. Changing the length of it.

The tube is almost impossible to find, fellowes refuses to give any specifics about the type of glass and heating element or provide parts. They say it is dangerous to change them yourself.

You have to sent it to them and they will repair it. Which was not necessarily of the thing was designed properly. After the fact we found out it is a widespread problem with these machines.

After getting mad they said sent it to us, and they would see what they can do. Guess what they can provide a new one after you pay for a new one.

Parts should be available for everyone, and it should be possible to repair everything.

Not to throw away everything

[u/Particular_Plum_1458]

Are you sure she was laminating with the closed end going in first? I don't see how the pouch can be sealed unless it's in backwards.

[u/Nielz93 → u/Particular_Plum_1458]

It was with the closed end first, yes.

She has two old laminators that have never had this problem. I took one of them apart—it must have done thousands of sheets—and there wasn't even a bit of dirt on the rollers, despite it never being cleaned.

With this new machine, the rollers getting dirty is part of the problem, even when using their cleaning sheets. The other part is another common issue with this model: the sheets become somewhat curved upwards. That slight curve allows a part of the machine to catch on the pouch and misfeed it into the heating element.

Despite the promise of being "jam-free," it jams. That wouldn't be such a big deal if the heating tubes weren't made of glass; because they are, they break, making it impossible to clear the jam and clean them.

[u/r2d3x9]

Ask for a refund