last year our team made their own buttons with an inexpensive machine, it took a long time to make each button, and the machine broke (it was plastic)
we are looking around for new machines, I found the one the Xcats use, the Badge-A-Matic I - nice metal machine, can make a button in about 10 seconds - I know that one works well, its about $300
also found one call Button-Biz, also a metal machine, quick to use - anyone have this machine? are you happy with it? Its about $300 too and comes with a circle cutter.
any other good quality button making machines out there?
I did the research on having buttons made, its about $250 for a thousand
and the raw materials to make a thousand are $50 - so its definately worth the several man hours it takes to make a thousand buttons - plus you can make as many different designs as you want.
Anyone have a line on any other good quality button making machines?
from:
Instant Buttons Machine MFG. Co.
15 Hamden Park Dr.
PO Box 6560
Hamden, CT 06517-0560
800-622-4266
they have a website—but I don’t know the address
They guarantee the machines, and have been making them for over 35 years.
We also started out borrowing machines, then we purchased an Badge-matic (which broke quickly)
This machine cost us $595.00. (prices from 2000)
But well worth it. It has a built in cutter, and ours has been heavily used for 3 years and still works great. We make students take a short training course before they use it. This machine is heavy and solidly built, and many attachments are available, like a tripod, table attachment, carrying case, keychain, mirrors, magnets, clipons etc etc.
The button pieces are cheaper in larger quantity.
We love our machine.
Please tell them that we referred you. Thanks.
On 212 and 168 we had a machine we bought from Ad-badge in miami, when you get going we can crank out a button every 5 seconds or so, its a really great system I’ll try and find a picture of it somewhere.
I’ve used both the semi-automatic and automatic button makers from badge-a-minit (http://www.badgeaminit.com/214butmakmac.html). I actually prefer the semi-automatic. We found that we could make buttons in 7 seconds with the semi-auto one, whereas the automatic took 10 seconds (though it was less work).
However, neither of those machines have cutters. I’ve found that the cutting is often the most difficult and time consuming part. If the Instant Button Machine has a very good cutter, it would be worth it over the badge-a-minit semi-automatic.
I would also disagree that it is only several man hours for 1000 buttons. I figure that people (especially students) don’t work at 100% for very long doing a repetitive task like making buttons. If it’s less then 15 man hours, you have very dedicated workers.
when I was on the Xcats team we had ‘spirit days’ after the robot shipped but before the first regional.
We found that if 3 people man the button machine, you can make good progress - one person to cut paper, one to set up the paper and metal and covers, and a third person to run the machine- that seemed to be the trick, to keep the machine busy all the time and have each person do one simple (but repetative) task.
my team actually had the auto and semi auto models from badgeaminit. the auto one was cool because you didn’t have to do much, but it jammed a lot. I perfer the semi auto one. Its cool. We had button parties in mike’s basement. Pizza+Music+Buttons=fun!
At De Anza, we use the badge-a-minit 3" plastic rings. They cost about 20 bucks. We actually press them in a real tool press, not in the plastic thing you get in the ‘kit’ from badge-a-minit…so if I had it to do over again I’d buy nothing but the plastic rings. The secret is to press the edges of the button maker, not the center. This works well for us, and I think we can get that five second rate (exclusive of cutting) when our students are well fed.
By the way, USA buttons has MUCH better prices on the actual button supplies than Badge-a-Minit…we’ve used them with pleasure for the past three years.