I am sorry if this reply is going to be long. I put it together to give to my daughters and a niece who are looking at a Sinbo and modified it to put on this forum. I bought my Sinbo about this time last year after much research on the different vacuum sealers. Limiting myself to under $300 cut out a lot the commercial units. I chose the Sinbo because of price and convenience. After adding in the different prices of the bags, the price of Food Saver style bags justified my decision. Where I did make a mistake is in not getting the Sinbo DZ-280/2SE unit with the liquid canister for catching powder and liquids. A few tips that I have learned over the last year sealing food, survival items and misc things.I am using 3 mil thickness bags for most of my storage and freezing. When you are sealing a bag you want the completed seal to look as much like a factory seal as possible if you have a smooth hatch pattern you probably have as good a seal as you can get. When you are at the right temperature and time the bag should “lightly” stick to the hot sealer strip. I found that setting the timer to 5 for the first few bags and reducing the timer to 4, after the heat strip is hot, seems to work for me. The heat strip will retain a lot of heat, what is the correct timing for a good seal after sealing 3 or 4 bags, is not the same as it was when when you first started out with the unit at room temperature. When you remove the bag from the sealer strip “slowly” peel it off starting at one side pulling up gently so as not to ruin the hot seal on the bag. Then lay the bag back down on the sealing strip with the strip under the bag about ½ way between the seal you just made and the edge of the bag. Close the the arm unit and without locking the arm down, press down on the hot seal bar and hold it down for 4 light flashes of the timer, release the bar and gently remove the sealed bag. The reason for only holding the heat bar down for 4 flashes is the heat element is already very hot and a time period of 4 flashes should give you a good second seal. Do not flex the bag while the seals are still hot, sometimes flexing the seal before it is cool seems to ruin it. If you start using a heavier gage/thicknes bag you will obviously have to adjust the timing involved with the thicker bag. When you extend the snorkel make sure the arm is in the up position and not down, the tube will try and tear out the upper foam seal, don't ask me how I know. One of the problems with this snorkel arrangement is that the bag will sometime gather over the mouth of the snorkel and stop the unit from pulling air from the bag interior. The fix for this problem is a piece of paper towel about 1 inch by 1 ½ inch in size. Fold the paper lengthwise and then fold it at the 1/3 line to make an open ended envelope. Put the lower side of the bag under the snorkel, fold back the upper side of the bag to give access to the snorkel tip, slip the paper envelope over the snorkel tip, finish folding the open side over the snorkel, lay the upper layer of bag on the snorkel and paper envelope and everything will stay in place. Most of the time the envelope will be held in place by the weight of the bag laying on top of it. I know it sounds complicated, but after ten or twelve bags you will have it down pat and the paper towel envelope is a lot less trouble than the bag being sucked shut and you having to stop and reposition everything. The paper towel piece gives the plastic enough room to let air be drawn out of the bag. When you push down on the sealer bar and the snorkel retracts the paper will stay in the bag and will not be in the way of the seal. The paper towel envelope also serves another purpose, it filters out any “stuff” that might be waiting to be sucked into your machine. You still have to move the items in the bag as close to the tip of the snorkel, but at least it wont jam up and stop the suction action. I cannot emphasize enough that you DO NOT want to get any sweet/sticky liquid into the bowels of the machine. If you have the 2/SE model with the canister you should be safe from that problem, if you have a unit without the canister to catch liquids you really want to keep any sticky/sweet liquid away from your pumps. If you are using a paper towel envelope to cover the tip of the snorkel keep an eye of it, when it gets wet push the sealer bar and stop the vacuum pump If you are working with something with a lot of liquid, make sure and keep the snorkel tube wiped clean and dried, don't forget to get top and bottom and the area under the snorkel by the heat seal section. A dirty/greasy/wet snorkel could keep you from making good seals on your bags. You can clean the unit by pumping warm water through it if you do get a liquid in it by accident, but it is better not to have to do that. The machine is set up with a drain tube from the pumps that will let you put warm water through the system. Make sure you do it over a thick bath towel to catch the liquid that comes out and a clean paper towel over the bath towel so you can check of any gunk that might have come out. The easy way to put water thru your unit is to put about a cup to a cup and half of warm water into an unused bag, seal it WITHOUT USING THE VACUUM PUMP, snip off one corner just large enough to let the extended snorkel slip in snugly, start the vacuum pump without putting down the sealer arm, carefully let the system suck water, try not to drown it. When it has sucked all the water from the bag, let the pump run sucking air for about 30 seconds without any obstruction on the snorkel tube, this should let the system flush all the water. Hopefully that will let the system clear itself of any residue that could make the pumps jam the next time you use it. If you have the 2/SE model make sure you do not fill the canister and flood the pumps. If you do get sticky in the pumps good luck and I hope you are good with small hand tools. Make sure and take photos of where all the tubes run so you can put them back. Sucking the air out of a bag seems to take only a few seconds, but if you allow the machine to keep sucking for about 20 to 25 seconds you will get a package that has had as much air sucked out at the machine is capable of. Again if you are sealing something juicy watch your paper envelope. I used a Food Saver unit the other day and it flattened some ripe cherries and sucked a lot of juice out of them. It also made a mess of the bag seal, I am not sure that the Sinbo pumps are that powerful, but better control of the process seems to out weigh that difference in vacuum capability. If you have trouble handling your bags get a piece of 2x10 about 10 inches long or several pieces of 2x4 to use as a table in front of the Sinbo. I hope this information has been of value to some of you that are looking at or using a Sinbo vacuum unit. Here is the addresses of two of the suppliers that I have used for supplies. They are both very nice people to work with. http://www.dougcare.com/foodstorage/homeequip.htm#sinbo http://shop.vacuumsealersunlimited.com/
