Finding a good quality spiral coil bindingmachine for a good price can be challenging. It can be difficult tofind a machine that is reliable, easy to use and has the features thatyou need all for a decent deal. However, the Akiles CoilMac ECI claimsto be all of these things. In fact, it appears to be one of the mostpopular coil binding machines on the market. I recently went out intothe warehouse and opened up one of these ALUZINC STEEL COIL machines to see if theCoilmac-ECI is all that it claims to be. This review will detail myobservations concerning the features, limitations and construction ofthis machine.

Features: The first feature that I decided to test on this machine was thepunching mechanism. The ECI has a manual punching mechanism that israted for punching up to 17 sheets of paper at a time. When I actuallytested my machine I found that it would comfortably punch between 14-15sheets per lift. Seventeen sheets of 20lb paper was possible but youhad to pull pretty hard to get it to punch. The Coilmac-ECI had noproblem punching the clear covers or polycovers that I tested on it.However, punching plastic covers should be limited to 2 sheets at atime with this machine. Second, I wanted to take a look at the coil inserter. The machine hastwo rollers mounted near the front of the machine. There is a switch toturn the coil inserter on and off and a foot pedal control to activatethe coil inserter. The coils spin very fast and help to spin the coilsonto your books. The inserter on ECI includes two fixed spinningrollers.

This makes it great for spinning smaller sized coils (largercoils will need to be inserted by hand). The foot pedal control is veryuseful, it allowed me to hold my documents with both hands while I wasinserting the coil. The ECI had a few other features that I thought were worth noting.First, it has a number of disengageable dies on the front of themachine. These dies allow you to pull a punching pin for dealing withdifferent sizes of paper. Using these pull pins you can use the ECI topunch 8.5", 11", A4 and A5 paper. This is a pretty good selection ofsizes and will fit the needs of most organizations. I also noticed thatthe Coilmac-ECI includes a continuous punching guide.