Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I will admit, that I have not purchased this exact model from Amazon, but I have used this brand impulse sealer for several years now and feel I am qualified to talk a bit about it. This is not a product review, but just some info that I hope you will find helpful, especially if you are new to sealing polymers. Cellophane, by itself, is NOT sealable, meaning that it will not seal to itself. It is usually coated with a nitrocellulos or thin layer of heat sealable material to make it work. If you're buying pre-formed bags, odds are the vendor has assumed your desire to seal, and is providing you such a material. If you purchase true, uncoated cellophane however, do not expect it to seal, regardless of your settings. That being said, this sealer is not exclusive to cellophane. It will seal pretty much any of your common plastics...polypropylene, polyethylene, nylon, etc. though, expect to change your settings for each. Also, the thickness of your material will, in part, determine your settings. This is an impulse sealer, meaning that it forms a seal when an electric current is passed through a thin wire or strip of metal (covered by a PTFE tape) to generate heat. This means there is no "heat up" time required, and it also means your chances of suffering a burn are minimal, as the wire loses the heat as quickly as it gains it. I am not sure about this exact sealer, but impulse sealers generally have a much thinner sealing area than say a bar sealer or band sealer. Keep this in mind if your trying to seal a powder or product that will easily contaminate your seal area. A dirty seal is a weak seal. When creating a seal, you are dealing with three variables: heat, duration that the heat is applied (called dwell), and pressure. This sealer does not allow you to change pressure, but I don't recommend that you do anyway, unless you know what you're doing. I believe, rather that individual temperature and dwell settings, the dial on this sealer gives you numbers that refer back to the power (which can be correlated to heat). Again, I am not positive, but I think the dwell is a constant on this sealer. The last thing I'll mention briefly is that higher settings don't necessarily always mean a stronger seal. I recommend starting low and gradually increasing your settings. Eventually, you may see the seal start to get weaker, the higher you go. This means that you've likely burned off or squeezed out the heat seal layer and need to back off on one of your variables. It seems counter-intuitive, but if you're looking for the strongest seal possible, then look for the bag material to rip or tear before the seal when opening. A material failure proves your seal is stronger than your material. Ok, so I know this is probably way overkill for the kind of sealing that you'll be doing with this, but I just had to share. I am a Packaging Engineer and just really like seals! Haha...happy sealing...