The price of bubble wrap keeps rising, and it is hard to find honest dealers of BW unless you go with the most expensive. So I am considering getting a bubble wrap machine.
Has anyone else done this? Got any advice?
( BTW, I am looking for bubble wrap or equivalent that is no more than an inch thick, maybe less. Something like the output of this. I don’t want ‘pillows’. )
After some browsing, I am thinking that the size and shape of the output is determined by the input material, not by the machine. Is this true?
Also, I do not want to get locked in to some proprietary standard. Are there common generic standards for machines and input film?
There seems to be a generic Chinese budget machine, sold under a handful of brand names such as JZBrain, Vevor, and any name with the number ‘300’ in it.
They appear to be competing with each other on price, driving it down below $125.
Does anyone have any experience with this?
… and the one your link above mentioned in the review that maintenance parts need to be available is also as a consideration.
I won’t buy from them, but they do have a wide range of useful packing material:
This is what I got years ago
You can put different packs in it
I think I only paid about $900 for it, but at the time with the volume I had it was worth it.
This was with me recycleing all packing material I got from manufacturers.
Nice thing is it takes up about 1 cubic foot and you can fill on demand
Thanks. I searched before posting, but a minor misspelling hid it from me.
Last thing I need is a machine which requires space on a flat surface.
It sits on it’s own rolling rack & fills the bin. You can manually turn it on or set it to auto sense when the bin is low.
What type of sensor? Weight? Ultrasound?
This probably won’t matter to me, for whom a good day is a dozen sales, but others might want to know.
The bar that shoots out over the bin shoots down a light/laser something and sends back a reading to the machine, you can set the level.
Looks like they have a mini now.
Fixed it
I bought the cheapest machine that I could find ( $124 with free shipping ) It included a practice roll for making small pillows.
It arrived two days ago. I was hoping to describe my use of it so that this thread might become a how-to.
It did not work. The rollers that were supposed to move the plastic through the parts that fill and seal did not rotate. The machinery just below them made a clicking/rattling sound.
So I applied for a return, packed it up, and it is currently sitting on the porch waiting for UPS to pick it up. I told Amazon that I wanted another one instead of a refund.
In an attempt to make this a how-to thread for buying BW machines, I am answering some of my own questions.
Two of the three dimensions are determined by the manufacturer of the roll of film. The third is determined by the machine.
Height and width are fixed, built into the roll when it is manufactured. Thickness of the output is flexible, determined by how much air the machine blows in before it seals.
There is a knob to adjust how fast the air-filling fan blows. The air is blown through a nozzle into each segment of film. As the film is moved past the air-filling nozzle, the pillow gets inflated.
The rollers that move the film slide it through at a constant rate, so it spends a fixed amount of time being inflated. If lots of air is blown into the film during that time, the pllow is thick. If a smaller amount of air is blown, the pillow is thinner.
still have one of those. an air pump that came with 1000 pillows. Each having to be individually filled. SO not worth it.
5 posts were split to a new topic: Tabletop perforator/cardboard shredder
I sent it back, and received another one. This one was defective too. The rollers rotated on ths one, but the air flow was anemic. On its highest setting, it could barely fill small ( 8 inch wide ) pillows.
I’m sending it back too. And I’m washing my hands of this model.
I’ve come to the conclusion that even the best of them - one that makes it through legit quality control - are barely adequate.
I went up a notch in quality. I just ordered one of these
This one has separate settings for heat and roller speed, which were cojoined on the cheaper model.
If roller speed and sealer heat are not adjustable, then the machine can only handle certain thicknesses of film. If it is too thin, it gets melted and the pillow leaks. If it is too thick, it won’t seal completely, and the pillow leaks.
The same can occur if the film is a slightly different type of plastic. It may melt to slowly or too quickly.
The film must fit right in the Goldilocks zone, or the machine cannot handle it.
Unfortunately, there seem to be no standards or grades for film, neither material or thickness. So even if the budget buyer wants to try to get Goldilocks film, there is no way to deterine if the film qualfies, short of ordering some and testing it.
So the prudent buyer of a bubble wrap machine should buy one that has at least three separate controls:
1) Temperature of sealer.
2) Speed of film through the machine.
3) Speed of air blower.
The new machine arrived, and it works! It is way better than the others - even if they had worked properly.
I’m quoting myself here just to ensure that potential buyers do not miss it. The better machine costs 60% more than the inferior one, but is worth way more than that because it can handle a far greater variety of rolls of film.
The only cloud on the horizon is parts supplies if/when it breaks or wears out. This machine uses a belt rolling on two wheels to pull film through, rather than the single roller that the cheaper machine had. It came with a spare belt.
On the positive side, it means that the machine gets a better grip on the film, and it also means that the heating element can be longer, so the film is exposed to sightly lower heat for a longer time.
The negative is, of course, more moving parts means more parts to break.
After the cost of the machine is amortized over a few thousand feet of bubble wrap, I am getting my bubble wrap cost down to about five or six cents per square foot.
A few other notes:
The machine that I recommend appears to have a model number of C10.
It also has a finger guard to prevent fingers getting pulled into the film grabbing parts. I haven’t seen this on any other machine.
The cylinder that mounts rolls is about 8 inches long. Nonetheless, it can take longer rolls. They just stick out further. The only problem with really wide rolls ( eg 16 inches ) is that they overbalance the machine, and it falls over unless the outer end of the roll is supported.
Could a mod give this subject its own thread?
