KM SD-506 Saddle Stitcher throughput expectations

[Manatarms]

Hi Guys,

I currently have both a KM C6500 and C7000. I’ve been landing a few more booklet jobs lately, and I currently use the light duty FS-612 to produce them. This works fine for small orders and books with 2 or 3 gut pages and the cover, but anything thicker really needs face trimming. I get throughput of about 5 books per minute when using running 148gsm gloss covers through the post inserter and using 3 pages of duplexed B&W 75gsm laser paper for the guts.

For those of you with and SD-506, what type of throughput would you expect on a job like this, adding face trimming to the equation?

Best regards,

Mark

 

[Craig]

I have the SD-506 on my 1200 and the thing is a tank. It will run at the rated speed of the machine, so whatever your 6500 and 7000 will run, it will keep up. We have stitched and trimmed as many as 28 signatures printed on 60lb text with a 80lb cover inserted. I checked the counters, we have run 6,700 books (282,000 sheets just through the SD-506) through it without a glitch since it was installed in August.

 

[Manatarms]

I have the SD-506 on my 1200 and the thing is a tank. It will run at the rated speed of the machine, so whatever your 6500 and 7000 will run, it will keep up. We have stitched and trimmed as many as 28 signatures printed on 60lb text with a 80lb cover inserted. I checked the counters, we have run 6,700 books (282,000 sheets just through the SD-506) through it without a glitch since it was installed in August.

Craig,

Thanks for the info. Are you printing the booklets all on the same paper (guts and cover the same) as one job, or or are you running separate covers and inserting them into the job? I've heard the 506 has some trimming limitations, especially with heavier covers.

Mark

 

[Craig]

Running covers om my Xerox and inserting them. I have run up to 100lb gloss cover without a problem. The limitations may fall when you program the paper weight. In that case just lie to it.

 

[JayDA]

I have two of them, one on each of my C8000s, and I agree with Craig. They're solid as a rock, I run 100lb gloss covers around lighter guts all the time, they run at the rated speed of the machine with no issues.

 

[Manatarms]

I have two of them, one on each of my C8000s, and I agree with Craig. They're solid as a rock, I run 100lb gloss covers around lighter guts all the time, they run at the rated speed of the machine with no issues.

JayDA,

By running at rated speed do you mean the machine does not pause or hesitate on printing when it's making booklets? For example, your C8000 does 80ppm, so you get 1.33 letter impressions per minute. If you were making a 16 page booklet using 8.5x11 stock to output 5.5 x 8.5 booklet (1 cover = 4 "pages" and 3 interior sheets = 12 "pages"), your machine would have to print 3 duplexed 8.5x11 pages to create the interior. this is 6 impressions x 1.33...so your machine will print the interior pages in 8 seconds. Would your booklet maker spit out one booklet every 8 seconds, or is there a delay due to cover insertion and/or handing the pages before folding/trimming?

thanks!

Mark

 

[Craig]

Mark, when we are printing booklets from the 1200 the finisher DOES NOT make the engine pause or slow down, the 1200 runs at 120 pages per minute.

 

[kdonegan]

post insert

post insert

I have the SD-506 on my 1200 and the thing is a tank. It will run at the rated speed of the machine, so whatever your 6500 and 7000 will run, it will keep up. We have stitched and trimmed as many as 28 signatures printed on 60lb text with a 80lb cover inserted. I checked the counters, we have run 6,700 books (282,000 sheets just through the SD-506) through it without a glitch since it was installed in August.

Craig, how do you insert the cover? i was told that the post inserter is not compatible with the 506 when I tried to spec it on a C8000?
thanks

 

[Craig]

Again we have the SD-506 on a KM 1200 B/W machine. Your configuration may not be the same. Our options for inserting were FD-503 (which is what we went with) or PF-PFU.

 

[Toner4Brains]

Craig, how do you insert the cover? i was told that the post inserter is not compatible with the 506 when I tried to spec it on a C8000?
thanks

In order to post insert on the C8000, you have to actually get the FD-503 Folding Unit which has 2 500 sheet post insertion sources. The FD-503 is absolutely compatible with the SD-506 - you could even throw a perfect binder and a staple finisher after the SD-506 and it wouldn't be out of configuration.

 

[Zwicker Press]

Can't you put the covers in a different tray and have them run as a blank insert?

We do this routinely on our machines.
You have to pre-print the covers, load them in one of the trays and then tell the machine they are the same weight/finish paper as the guts of the book, so that it wont pause to change temps.

I'm not familiar with the Creo, but with Fiery Impose it's very simple and a blank insert doesn't count as a click so you can make due without the cover inserter.

Example: You put your pre-printed heavy gloss covers in tray 3 and tell the machine it's 60# offset text.
Then load tray 4 with 60# offset text
Set the job to pull a blank cover from Tray 3 and the guts from tray 4
With all of it being 60# offset text

An added bonus is that you eliminate most of the "too many sheets" issues because the machine doesn't know it running cover stock.

I've done this on a KM6500->FS601 and a Ricoh720->Plockmatic without issue

 

[JayDA]

Can't you put the covers in a different tray and have them run as a blank insert?

We do this routinely on our machines.
You have to pre-print the covers, load them in one of the trays and then tell the machine they are the same weight/finish paper as the guts of the book, so that it wont pause to change temps.

I'm not familiar with the Creo, but with Fiery Impose it's very simple and a blank insert doesn't count as a click so you can make due without the cover inserter.

Example: You put your pre-printed heavy gloss covers in tray 3 and tell the machine it's 60# offset text.
Then load tray 4 with 60# offset text
Set the job to pull a blank cover from Tray 3 and the guts from tray 4
With all of it being 60# offset text

An added bonus is that you eliminate most of the "too many sheets" issues because the machine doesn't know it running cover stock.

I've done this on a KM6500->FS601 and a Ricoh720->Plockmatic without issue

I have done this on both the C6500/FS601 and C8000/FD506 and it works....

 

[soontobeexkonicauser]

We have been using two of the stitching units, one for monochrome and one for color, for about 2 1/2 years.

Our long term report on the units is mixed. Please remember we are an offset house with $300,000 stitchers so we are a little jaded.

On the monochrome. Really a good unit for loose next and lightweight stitched books. Cover books can done, but you have to accept cracking for most sheets, so toner on the spine is going to be a compromise. You can offline score it, very heavy matrix score or a really deep roll score to get around it, and the unit will accept that sheet and hit very close.

Very little maintenance issues with monochrome device.

The same unit mated with the C8000 is a mixed bag. The C8000 can have some sheet to sheet registration issues with duplex work and this will be amplified on the stitcher if you have work that has crossovers. Deal with dampened expectations if you do offset work. For copy work, it does an ok job.

As for the slowdown factor there is a slow down factor, not sure what the rest of the guys are measuring, but we have done scientific measure. Like all devices that accumulate there is a small bit of latency between the finishing of the accumulation and the movement to the turner. An 8 page booklet would actually have to stop and wait until all the actions are done. Folding takes the least amount of time, stitching adds a bit more and face trimming a bit more.

The larger the book, the less you will notice it, but it is there. Our measured throughput speeds for an 8 page on the color are also impacted by a drop in speed for duplexing on the C8000 not experienced on the 1200P.

If you plan on doing bleeds, look to an off line solution or odd sizes. We ran into this issue today, after 2 and 1/2 years of ownership that the FD-802 unit will not do non-standard sizes. And a 6" by 9" is apparently considered a non-standard size (there is no ISO/Euro standard for this).

After 2 1/2 years we now believe that the units are good for standard work such as newsletters or non-bleed booklets that don't require high quality standards. the rest are going to the bindery for finishing.

Also, remember this is a face trim only unit. Consider a higher end unit or near line solution if you are a high volume shop, you will not regret it. It's about throughput.

Good luck!