We work harder not smarter. We put about 400k cans through this thing (yes actually - it was as dumb as you think it was). Is it fiddly heavy sharp "pinchy" requires frequent adjustment? Yes. Does it dutifully apply labels? Yes. If it isn't feeding applying etc. right - make an adjustment. If you're getting bubbles - make an adjustment. If you're getting some tolerance drifting- make and adjustment. The thing works near perfectly and once it's set it's set with some slight tweaks here and there. If you want this to apply perfect labels out of the box every time and don't want to get hands on with it - don't buy this (or use labels). If you're willing to spend an hour to get to know the machine and do some slight wrenching on it - it will work for the rest of time. Full bore I could do a case of 24 cans in under a minute. Yes I was hitting my knuckles on things. Yes it was awful but the machine itself has been a loyal little friend has had effectively zero maintenance and is now being used by a Kombucha company up the road. It was less "good riddance" and more "good by old friend - I hope to never see you again".

I have tried multiple times to get it setup to get my labels without air bubbles but I have since given up and had to flatten the bubbles out each time it applies a label. The fittings are super tight to get the labels to wrap up on the interior trash roller so I let the trash roll off into a box to bunch up in a big pile. It is soooo close to being an awesome tool but for now it just saves me a little bit of time. Pushing the bubbles out of 500 labels can really take the skin off your fingers...