The Akiles CoilMac ECI, perhaps the most popular coil binding systems
on the market, is meant to provide a solution
for businesses that aim to do a moderate amount of coil binding,
probably for in-house documents and reports. Here is a brief overview
of this machine and some of its strengths and weaknesses as we see them.
Perhaps the most popular coil binding systems
on the market, the Akiles CoilMac ECI is meant to provide a solution
for businesses that aim to do a moderate amount of coil binding,
probably for in-house documents and reports. Here is a brief overview
of this machine and some of its strengths and weaknesses as we see
them.
Strengths:
The punching capacity of the
CoilMac ECI is stated at seventeen pages per lift, and we did find that
it was capable of reaching that number. We discovered however, that it
was much easier and more productive to keep the number to around
fifteen sheets. That is still a pretty decent punching capacity for a
manual machine like this, and we also found that it punched two plastic
cover sheets at one time without any problems.
The CoilMac
ECI has a coil inserter located at the front of the machine. Inserters
make the binding process a lot easier and we found that this one worked
quite well. We really liked the foot pedal operation which allowed us
to keep both hands on the book while the coil is being inserted. For
larger sized books, you will still need to insert the coils by hand,
but that is the case with any machine.
One of the great
features of the CoilMac ECI is that it has dies that are disengageable.
What this means is that when you are doing your punching, you can
disable some of the punching pins to accommodate different sizes of
documents. This will enable you to produce nice clean punches on
letter, A4 and A5 sized documents. That is a lot of flexibility, and
will fill the needs of the vast majority of the documents that most
organizations will be producing. However, even if you find the need to
punch sheets that are longer than that, the CoilMac ECI features a
continuous punching guide that allows you to use a two punch process to
do the job.
The depth of punch margin control on the
CoilMac ECI is also a nice touch. This is a feature that makes it much
easier to gauge how far from the sheets' edge you are punching your
holes. For larger sized books, you will want to punch the holes further
from the edge in to ensure usability and durability.
Weaknesses:
The
CoilMac ECI is a nice machine with some great capabilities, but it is
still a manual machine when all is said and done. All that means is
that if you are a larger organization that will be doing a fair amount
of binding, and/or binding larger books on a regular basis, you may
want to consider purchasing a machine with an electric punch. They are
considerable more expensive, though, so you will have to weigh the
pluses and minuses yourself.
As stated above, the CoilMac
ECI's coil inserter won't work with most larger sized coils. This is
not uncommon for inserters that are attached to binding machines as
part of a system. You will have better luck with a standalone inserter,
but even a standalone won't do larger books all that well.
If you are interested in more information about the Akiles CoilMac ECI Coil Binding Machine, you should really check out MyBinding.com.
They offer a great price on this machine and they even offer Free
Shipping on all orders over $75. MyBinding.com carries the entire line
of Akiles binding equipment along with one of the largest selections of
Spiral Coil Binding Supplies that you will find on the internet. Choose
from more than fifty colors and twenty-seven sizes.
