Vacuum Forming Machine Power Former Heat Molding Tool w/Steel Balls Lab Equipment

This is the first time I have used such machine to make a dental guard. It is very simple to use. It comes with the metal balls which is helpful. When you turn heating element on for the very first time, it will produce some smoke and fumes for a couple minutes. Therefore, I recommend using it in a very well ventilated area or outdoors. Build quality seems reasonable. It did a great job forming a dental guard with 2mm sheets.

As the headline says, I have been using this vacuum former for more than two years now to manufacture small, plastic parts such as micro drone canopies. Mine does not see daily use, but it does get well used for two or three hours at a time every two or three months. I've run High Impact Polystyrene, Clear Polystyrene, Polyethylene Terephthalate Glycol (PETG ex. soda bottles), High Density Polyethylene (HDPE ex. milk jugs, shampoo bottles) and Polycarbonate sheets ranging from .02 to .03 inches thick over forms up to two inches tall and two inches wide without any real problems. The electric heating element does take a while to heat up when it is first powered on and then it stays hot for a good while afterwards, so watch your hands. Also, I always shut off the heating element before dropping the plastic and turning on the vacuum motor. The only minor complaint I have is the shape and/or placement of the heating element means that the back corners or the plastic may not heat up enough every time. That is easily fixed by swinging the heating element back and forth over the sheet, so I did not remove a star for that. For small scale, small size vacuum forming, I would have no problems recommending this machine.

I bought this unit to make a hard plastic retainer for my wife's teeth. She accidently broke her previous retainer, and her Ortho wanted $200 to make a new one. Fortunately, we already had a mold of her teeth from when her braces were removed. I used the mold with this product to form a new retainer. After Trimming it up and a little buffing on the edges, it turned out perfect. So much so, we are going to make a mold of our sons teeth, so if he ever looses his retainer or breaks it, we can simply make him a new one. at $99 this unit more than paid for itself already. My wife is already coming up with ideas to also make herself some plastic candy molds with it. I believe this little machine is about to get the durability test. I'll update this review if anything changes, but for now its great.

If you're old enough, you may remember a toy called the Mattel VacUFrom. It was a great thing for kids who liked to make stuff. I can't remember how much plastic I must have bought for that thing to make cars, models, canopies for model airplanes etc. I've thought about building a small vacuum forming machine many times over the years for occasional projects, but never got around to it. Then I saw Adam Savage's review of this item on his YouTube page. He loved it! He really had trouble containing his excitement for it. It was so inexpensive and it worked!. So I ordered one to check it out. Let me just say this thing does work, but you're going to have a learning curve with it. Plus, it has the potential for being really dangerous if you are not careful. First problem; What plastic to use? I bought a package of the dental splints listed under the product. They are 5"x5" sheets of a really soft thermoforming material. Much softer than I thought it would be. I also bought 5 sheets of clear polycarbonate plastic, 12"x12"x0.02". You have to cut it down to 5"x5" sheets for the machine. Be ready to waste lots of plastic figuring out how this thing works. I ruined 4 or 5 pieces of each before I realized I'd let the plastic get too hot. I can see it's going to take many tries to get this down before I can reliably make something. The maximum working area you have is 4"X4", so keep that in mind. I'm looking for cheap sources of plastic to work with. I'm going to try old 1 gallon milk jugs and 2-liter soda bottles next. Hopefully I'll find an industrial supply for material that will be a lot cheaper than what I've found on Amazon so far. Now the bad news. While this unit seems to be built fairly well, it's about as simple as it can be and really could use some improvements. The vacuum works very well. Maybe too well in some cases. The heater is the real weak point. It has two settings: Off, and way too hot. You definintly do not want to heat the plastic up in the highest position. You'll burn it. There is a lower detent position which is much better. But the lid gets so hot, you can ruin the plastic before you realize it (depending on what material you use. The lid gets so hot, the warning label saying the lid is hot burned off the first time I used it. The little plastic knob for moving the heater out of the way even started melting. You do not want to leave this thing on unattended. It would have been much better to have some sort of adjustment to lower the heat. I have an auto transformer I'm going to try, but that probably would need not work well with the vacuum. Frankly, I think this thing is a burn hazard and probably a fire hazard so it would not make a good purchase for a child unless they are supervised. It should be treated as any power tool an adult would use.

I got this to vacuform windows for my 3D printed rc rigs. Works excellent! Perfect windows every time!

Excelente producto, muy rapido

Everything works great. It's been very well used. After reading other reviews I made sure to run it for a few cycles letting the heating element get warm and burn off the anti corrosion oils on the machine. After letting it heat till it starts to smoke off some oil than shutting it down and repeating a few times it has worked great and doesn't smoke at all. I've probably already done 60+ pulls without issues.

Good for the price works as good as the professionals