Marc Hansing, technical services manager for Seal, said that the company had decided to replace production of the 1,550mm 600 MD with the new 1,650mm laminator as the current machine has not been updated for a couple of years.

Seal has ended production of the 600 MD to gear up to beginning production for the 65 MD Pro for next year. Customers of the 600 MD can still get spare parts and service support from Seal's UK distributors, Atech, Colourgen and Robert Horne.

After listening to clients and its engineers, the company added a new Easy Operator Interface (EOI). "It’s a touch panel control system mounted on a pendant control arm that can be swung around to the back and front of the machine," explained Hansing.

He added that it was important to be able to use the machine from both sides because it uses bi-directional operation motors, which allow users to run thermo and cold films without a cooldown period.

"Normally, if you want to run a cold film after a hot film you have to wait for the rollers to cool down. With the bidirectional operation you can run cold films at the back of the machine so you don’t have to wait," he added.

The 65 Pro MD can process materials with a thickness of up to 50mm at 4.25m per minute.

It features pneumatic controlled rollers that were previously unique to the 600 MD to ensure easy and consistent repeat work. All four material supply shafts are cantilevered and swing out and away from the laminator to speed up loading of films and adhesives.

Hansing said the Frankfurt-based exhibition raised a lot of interest in the new machine.

"We showed it to Atech and they were really impressed. We’ve also had an order from a display printer in New Zealand and a couple of UK customers have shown interest," he added.

Seal will hold a distributor day before the launch of the machine in February. Hansing said there was no fixed price yet because the machine is still in the prototype stage.