I've found a cheap (£7) A6 laminator that seems to work very well for toner transfer (for those who don't know some people have had success with laminators as a better and quicker alternative to transferring toner with a clothes iron. See this for example LP-120 laminator for toner transfer PCB making - YouTube)
Maplin (UK) have it and it's "while stocks last" so is presumably being discontinued.
I've had excellent results. Much crisper transfer than I've ever had with an iron. No smudging/blurring at all. Might be worth noting I do use the blue PnP stuff - don't know if that's more or less reliable than magazine paper.
If you watch the video above I used pretty much the same technique although I had some toner not transfer towards the top edge (lift paper with tweezers and peek - although with the PnP you can kind of see what's transferred which is one advantage of it over paper). BUt I just fed the board back through a few times and it was fine. After the first pass the PnP is adhered to the board which is excellent news for alignment issues! In total I did about 10 passes on each face.
So far I've tested with double sided copper clad with thickness of 1.6 mm (I transferred both sides at once which is something you can't do with an iron easily) and the laminator does stall sometimes or not pick up the board but a gentle even push across the bottom sorts it out. I am concerned that ultimately it'll screw the mechanical parts so I'm going to try with 0.8 mm boards and also open up the laminator and have a look at the mechanism to see if it can be adjusted or where it's weak points are and how likely it is to fail.
Like you I found one as a special deal and thought it was worth a punt.
Im using an A4 one and the extra width seems to allow things to flex a bit and allow the pcb through without modification. Im getting realy good results without modifying the rollers or temperature so its not as difficult as a lot of blogs and sites make it out to be.
It gives realy good results as Im getting all the toner to transfer over.
The paper you use is the real killer. Once youve found something to work its great.
@Gordon - That's good to hear your experience suggests things are more flexible than others suggest. I didn't want to chuck £25-£30 at something that wasn't going to work for toner transfer and then break and not work for laminating either! £7 seemed too good to ignore. What paper do you use?
I use shiny magazine paper, from the thicker glosses.
Linus user and developer is particularly good.
So far I havnt found a photo paper that the toner will stick to properly.
Ive ordered some purpose made paper from china to see how that goes.
My laminater is a texet personal laminator from Aldi.
I think it was either £9.99 or £14.99 some time ago.
The wife hasnt reported any problems with her laminates.
I pass the board through at least six times until the paper goes a little
opaque and you can see the toner through it.
I use masking tape to hold it on the board.
Seems more than hot enough.
The board gets too hot too hold easily without protection.
Maybe the A3 one from maplin will concentrate the heat in the smaller width of the rollers.
At that price its worth trying. Even if you break it.
