Table Top UV Coating Machine

[AP90]

Hey guys, So we are going to dabble in perfect binding. We get a decent amount of quote request for them, so we've decided to jump in, get the equipment to produce short runs. Which is coincidentally the most amounts we get requested for. Our main problem is most of these want some type of coating. We can do the laminate coatings, but we cannot do the UV/AQ coatings. We have a shop about 45 mins away that will UV coat for us, but it is $180 start up fee and then 1000 minimum at $180. So basically, if I have 250 covers to be UV coated, it will cost me $360 plus 1.5 hours of driving. We could go out and buy a used Tec Lighting unit for 5k, but thats not money I'm just wanting to throw away. Right now we have 0 call for UV coating. So I'm wondering if one of those $1k Chinese machines off eBay will work for our introduction. They're not speed demons or anything, but for short runs surely they will at least get the job done, someone can feed it while the guts are printed and still be done ahead of time. Basically, Ill need it to do 5-10 cover runs until we see if this is something we are wanting to get into. So basically, will a table top Chinese UV machine last 2000-3000 covers? After that, we'll go out and buy a tec lighting one if we need will pursue perfect binding.

Also, will a machine that does UV coating lay down Aqueous coating too?

 

[old guy]

hey ap
UV and AQ are 2 different animals I have never seen a machine that did both, but you never know these days. i have an offline tek lighting coater that has run every day for over 10 years and is still solid

 

[JustinB]

hey ap
UV and AQ are 2 different animals I have never seen a machine that did both, but you never know these days. i have an offline tek lighting coater that has run every day for over 10 years and is still solid

Kompac EZ Koat machines will run aqueous and UV coating. They even have an anilox attachment for them for soft touch coating.