subject: Pc200 Spiral Coil Binding Machine Review [print this page] The PC200 is positioned as a low-cost spiral coil binding solution for low volume users. Here we take a look at this machine and examine its strengths and weaknesses.
Strengths:
1.) The biggest advantage the PC200 enjoys over almost all of its competition is that this machine features 46 fully disengageable punching dies. There is no other machine on the market in this price range that offers this kind of flexibility. We are also very impressed to find disengageable dies at this price point. Disengageable dies allow the user to stop any of the machine's pins from punching, thus allowing fully customizable punching patterns. The machine is designed to punch documents up to eleven inches, but larger documents are possible too using a two step process. All in all, as we said, it is almost unheard of to find this kind of flexibility at this price.
2.) The makers of the PC200 have seen fit to include a pair of spiral coil crimpers with the machine. This is a great idea, because there is no overestimating how important crimpers are to the plastic coil binding process. These are special pliers that are designed to cut off excess coil and crimp the end so that the wire stays in the document where it belongs, instead of winding its way out. While the pliers are only about a thirty dollar value, the fact that you don't need to buy them separately is definitely worth mentioning.
3.) You might expect a binding machine at this price point to be made of plastic. We did too, but were pleasantly surprised to find that the PC200 is made of metal for the most part. It looks to us like a very durable machine, and should last for ages if used in a small office or home setting. The PC200 may not stand up to industrial use but it isn't intended for that anyway.
4.) We also really like the PC200's adjustable punching-depth control, and the coil size selector. These are the kinds of things that make spiral coil binding just that much easier.
Weaknesses:
1.) For low volume production, say a handful or so of documents per week, the PC200 shines. However, you should be aware that the punching process used by this machine is manual, and can get just a little tedious over the course of a bigger project. The punching capacity of 12 to 15 pages per lift isn't too bad, but again, for larger projects it will prove to be a lot more work than you intended.
2.) The inclusion of crimping pliers is a nice touch, but it makes us wonder why there isn't a spiral coil inserter on the PC200 as well. This just means that you will be spinning the coil onto your document by hand. Again, not that big of a deal for a handful of books, but the time it would take to insert the coils on fifty to a hundred documents would be significant.
3.) The process for binding documents larger than eleven inches is a bit time consuming, and can take the inexperienced user some effort to learn to do correctly.
by: Jeffrey McRitchie
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