Customer Reviews

Fellowes Mars 95 Laminator (5215401)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This purchase was for my wife, who was tired of using the school's laminator. We have used this several times now, and it has worked very well. With laminators costing as much as $600, this is a very good product for the price range.

I bought this item for home use and have been very satisfied with it. We home school, and this enables to keep my visuals nice throughout the whole year as well as save them for my other children. I weekly laminate about 6 to 8 sheets and have experienced no problems using this laminating matchine.

Only good for 3 mil pouches, which are fairly flimsy. Spend a little more and get a laminator that can handle the 5 mil also.

I purchased this laminator in February. It's now November and already broken. I used the laminator to laminate magazine articles of interest to me. I don't know what caused it, but today, the third time I ever used the machine, it broke! I think this laminator managed to laminate about 20 - 30 pages before biting the dust. I have unscrewed the machine and am hoping to be able to pry it open to clear the jam, but so far I have been unsuccessful. I tried to download a user manual from the website, but it's unavailable.

The Fellowes Mars ML 95 9.5" Home Laminator has pros and cons.

First, the pros - it is hands-down, the quietest laminator my wife and I have ever used (she used it for school items). Also,the venting system for the heat is very good because while the machine gets hot it doesn't getting "burning hot" to the touch when fully heated. The carrying handle underneath is very convenient and comfortable when you pick up the laminator to carry it. The rollers move the piece being laminated through just fine but be advised that you have to slide it in a bit further than we've had to on other laminators before the rollers "catch" the piece and pull it through.

Second, the cons. The pros were so wonderful we were really hoping for a good quality lamination. The box we received didn't come with the trial sleeves but we had a variety of sheets and both the 3 ml and 5 ml sizes. The box and the manual both state that both sizes can be used with this machine. The results for the 5 ml were very disappointing. The laminated item crackled and had no real support after being run through the machine once. A second run through the machine (as suggested by another reviewer) helped a little bit but not enough to be worth the bother of having to do each one twice if you were laminating something everyday. For the once in a while user, it might be fine to have to do a couple of run-throughs of the item to get a sturdy enough lamination. The 3 ml size worked better and made for an okay lamination but again, not the type you'd want if you really needed a sturdily laminated item to stand up to frequent use. For home documents, items that you want to be sturdy but not last forever, etc. it might be okay. However, my wife - the teacher, wouldn't purchase it to use with a classroom where she is looking to laminate hands-on materials for the kids to use regularly and/or to preserve their certificates.

Overall, for once in a while laminating this might be fine but if you really want things to last, you might want to look into another brand or model and again, with all the pros, it is a shame that the final product isn't top notch in its lamination.

I bought this brand new from Amazon. The first sheet (using fellowes own brand) went flawlessly. The 2nd sheet made it half way through, then stopped and could not be retrieved. Unit is defective and cannot be repaired.

This laminater is great for light home use. The feel and quality leads me to think if you used it for heavier use in a small office, or if your hobby required lots of laminating it might not hold up. Switch on top is a flimsy plastic button. That said it works great for the price.

I have been using this laminator for a few months now. It does a good job. I was not able to buy the recommended laminating pouches on Amazon though. The instructions recommend you use the Fellowes brand but since I buy most of my things at Amazon I could only use the Scotch brand ones, like this: Scotch(TM) Thermal Laminating Pouches, 9 Inches x 11.4 Inches, 20 Pouches (TP3854-20). I think its relatively poor form to not be able to buy the corresponding pouches, but the Scotch ones have worked fine without any problem.

The Laminator does a good job. It only does 3mil lamination, it says in the instructions that the 5mil ones won't work and I didn't try them.

I think it will work well for you in the following situations:

1) If you only need occasional laminating.

2) If the items you laminate do not have to be very sturdy or last an extremely long time.

For laminating simple signs to hang up on the wall, or for laminating a childs drawing, I think it works very well indeed.

The Fellowes Mars ML 95 Home Laminator does exactly what it says it will do. If you want a laminator that produces sturdier and heavier projects then you should consider purchasing a more expensive unit that handles the 5 mil pouches.

Takes about 5 minutes to heat up initially. Each 9 x 11.5 pouch took exactly 1 minute to run through and laminate. I have laminated different sizes and thickness of documents and they all came out just fine. I was able to trim smaller documents to size after laminating them without any issues. For a small laminator I was impressed with its ease of use and the laminating it produced.

This one only uses the 3mil pouches and they do a fine job, but are not like the hard laminate. I did a previously folded letter and you could still see the waves of the folds in the laminate, but it did laminate it perfectly.

My rating is for the 3mil laminator. If you desire a thicker laminated project you should consider at least a 5mil laminator.

The Fellowes Home Laminator is very easy to use. Just plug it in, turn it on, wait until the green light becomes lit, and load your item to be laminated through the nifty spooling tray. The laminator then permanently seals your document, you can then trim as needed.

To test it out, I used a single document with a large page of instructions. I unwrapped the laminator pocket, and sealed it inside. The document fed a bit crookedly due to my inexpert alignment, however, the item still sealed nicely. Second, I tested it out on a frayed and worn out social security card. I fed it in better this time, and It worked well, capturing the card inside, and preventing it from getting further damage.

This is a nice laminator, useful for sealing up documents you want to preserve. My local office supply store, had additional supplies for it, including 'credit card' sized packets, and larger pockets for bigger documents. This was a nice addition for any home office.