offline booklet maker

[GVG]

I would appreciate any comments for offline booklet making comparing the following 2 machines:

Duplo 150 without face trim - dropping booklet in and trimming on guillotine cutter - maybe adding face trim at later date
Used offline Plockmatic 350 with square back and face trim - dropping booklet in as well

Mostly for shortrun booklets of various sizes and page counts printed on gloss text and cover - 90% with bleed

 

[namelessentity]

We have the DBM-150 and it's great, but books don't lay very flat, I would not want to be face trimming them on a guillotine afterward. I've never run the Plockmatic, but to me the square back and face trim would be an instant sell if the prices are comparable.

 

[Ynot_UK]

We have the DBM-150T with a Plockmatic SQ-104 square fold on the end, as pictured
Space is at a premium in our shop and this is the smallest combination trim & squarefold solution you'll find.

IMO there's no point in buying a 150 without the trim. You won't guillotine more than a few at a time, coated stock especially will slide forward from the backstop and a bundle of booklets won't be consistent.

If space in the shop was more plentiful, we would have got the DSF-2200 feeder, which would be particularly great for booklets with pre-creased covers (we have 1,200 of those to do next week) however the hand feeder is OK if but a little flimsy.

 

[kslight]

As above…I have a dbm150 with face trimmer. I think it’s a nearly perfect machine for our use, but I would not have considered buying this machine without a face trimmer. I have zero interest in face trimming on our guillotine…tedious, not very safe, not very accurate?

 

[Robohopar]

I keep wanting an offline solution to booklet making but I’ve made due with the SD-513 inline on my Konica 12000 until now. It’s definitely not fast nor is it super reliable but it’s been getting the job done. The slitter has constant jams where it collects paper in its wheels so it needs to be removed, cleaned and put back. It also has some limitations on thicker stock but they are fair limitations, I would say. Sometimes I want to pull the trigger on the pluck 500 series but I’m tight on room. The short run books are too convenient to run on the SD-513, but the longer jobs of 500-3000 books we run take a while. I’ll keep following this thread to hear what other need to say.

 

[Ynot_UK]

...I’ve made due with the SD-513 inline on my Konica 12000 until now. It’s definitely not fast nor is it super reliable but it’s been getting the job done. The slitter has constant jams where it collects paper in its wheels so it needs to be removed, cleaned and put back. It also has some limitations on thicker stock but they are fair limitations, I would say. Sometimes I want to pull the trigger on the pluck 500 series but I’m tight on room. The short run books are too convenient to run on the SD-513, but the longer jobs of 500-3000 books we run take a while....

I imagine this is costing you more on small booklets you could otherwise impose 2-up if finishing offline, as generally a click is a click, up to SRA3 / 13x19

 

[pippip]

A bit off topic but I discovered the other day our v280 doesn't register a blank page as any click so have been using it as a booklet maker on smaller size books. Also they don't charge me when I order staples so must be included as consumables.

 

[GVG]

A bit off topic but I discovered the other day our v280 doesn't register a blank page as any click so have been using it as a booklet maker on smaller size books. Also they don't charge me when I order staples so must be included as consumables.

Would it not cause problems running printed stock back through as blank pages such as toner remelt or fuser issues?

 

[pippip]

Haven't come across any issues. I just set the stock to lowest GSM. I don't do it that often and generally break the job up with standard printing jobs.

 

[kslight]

H

I keep wanting an offline solution to booklet making but I’ve made due with the SD-513 inline on my Konica 12000 until now. It’s definitely not fast nor is it super reliable but it’s been getting the job done. The slitter has constant jams where it collects paper in its wheels so it needs to be removed, cleaned and put back. It also has some limitations on thicker stock but they are fair limitations, I would say. Sometimes I want to pull the trigger on the pluck 500 series but I’m tight on room. The short run books are too convenient to run on the SD-513, but the longer jobs of 500-3000 books we run take a while. I’ll keep following this thread to hear what other need to say.

I had KM machine with the SD513 attached, and it was so incredibly terrible that is what drove me to go offline.

 

[plotterraum]

We got our Ricoh C7100X with Plockmatic 500 (similar to 350) inline Booklet maker and did split both - use Plockmatic as an offline booklet maker -

So, say, we want to make full bleed A4 booklets - we print them on SRA3, - front cover is being printed separately, as we often print covers on 300g. We then process the covers with an Uchida Multifinisher, where top and bottom is being cut and crease is being added in the middle to avoid toner cracks.
Content pages are just being cut top and bottom with our Ideal cutter, and then we feed the combined cover+content pages in 450x297 format into the Plockmatic machine manually - where it is being processed and front cutted as well.

Believe it or not, but with some practice you can make booklets very fast this way, and reliable. We recently made 350 booklets (24 pages each, so cover + 5 content sheets) this way without any issue, - and mostly we make between 100-250 at once. I don't say that this is a perfect solution, and certainly not for a big volume / booklets with much more pages, but for us it does make sense.

 

[Robohopar]

I imagine this is costing you more on small booklets you could otherwise impose 2-up if finishing offline, as generally a click is a click, up to SRA3 / 13x19

You can go 2 up books because it’ll staple 4 times but you’ll have to trim them up in the center yourself. Otherwise, on short run books the margins are so higher that it’s worth just running them. For example on a half page booklet 8.5x5.5, I’ll cut a 13x19 sheet in half to 9.5x13 and run those to get a full bleed book out the finisher. At least I’ll save on paper somewhat.

In addition I’ll run a lot of 11x17 finished to 8.5x11 68-96 page books(no bleed) with 80lb cover sheets with 20lb guts. With this setup I’ll load up the trays and let it run after hours when I leave. Usually I’ll have no jams so when I come back in the morning, I’ll have about couple hundred books printed and ready. Saves a few critical business hours of printing for me. Ideally a plock would do the trick for me but I don’t have the room unless I go offline. Everyone’s application is a bit different. I guess I just find this to work for now.

@kslight can I ask wha your issues were?

 

[kslight]

You can go 2 up books because it’ll staple 4 times but you’ll have to trim them up in the center yourself. Otherwise, on short run books the margins are so higher that it’s worth just running them. For example on a half page booklet 8.5x5.5, I’ll cut a 13x19 sheet in half to 9.5x13 and run those to get a full bleed book out the finisher. At least I’ll save on paper somewhat.

In addition I’ll run a lot of 11x17 finished to 8.5x11 68-96 page books(no bleed) with 80lb cover sheets with 20lb guts. With this setup I’ll load up the trays and let it run after hours when I leave. Usually I’ll have no jams so when I come back in the morning, I’ll have about couple hundred books printed and ready. Saves a few critical business hours of printing for me. Ideally a plock would do the trick for me but I don’t have the room unless I go offline. Everyone’s application is a bit different. I guess I just find this to work for now.

@kslight can I ask wha your issues were?

We had the same slitter issues you had, books were always crooked, face trimming caused trimmings to jam the machine, etc… the engine also had a lot of issues… service couldn’t ever figure it out. Made our km relationship go very sour.

 

[Robohopar]

We had the same slitter issues you had, books were always crooked, face trimming caused trimmings to jam the machine, etc… the engine also had a lot of issues… service couldn’t ever figure it out. Made our km relationship go very sour.

Oh got it. Which engine were you running? The slitter jams up often and needs clearing but when it’s clear, it’s fine. Never had issues with the face trim. I wonder if the plocks have similar slitter issues.

 

[kslight]

Oh got it. Which engine were you running? The slitter jams up often and needs clearing but when it’s clear, it’s fine. Never had issues with the face trim. I wonder if the plocks have similar slitter issues.

We had a km 6085.

My Ricoh guys hate the inline plocks…we call them problematics. But I’ve not owned one, from a value POV the offline machine makes sense to us (buy one machine that lasts a decade or more for $20k, and never needs service…or pay $$$$$ for something you throw away every time you get a new printer, plus extra service costs, etc). I know some printers can make a case for automating booklets with the printer but for us the offline machine is much more flexible, reliable, cheaper, and faster (don’t have to slow the machine down, or run one up, etc).

 

[Robohopar]

We had a km 6085.

My Ricoh guys hate the inline plocks…we call them problematics. But I’ve not owned one, from a value POV the offline machine makes sense to us (buy one machine that lasts a decade or more for $20k, and never needs service…or pay $$$$$ for something you throw away every time you get a new printer, plus extra service costs, etc). I know some printers can make a case for automating booklets with the printer but for us the offline machine is much more flexible, reliable, cheaper, and faster (don’t have to slow the machine down, or run one up, etc).

I understand. What offline are you running now? It slits and face trims as well?

 

[kslight]

I understand. What offline are you running now? It slits and face trims as well?

Duplo dbm150, with the face trimmer. It is pretty minimalist, it does not slit, I cut top and bottom on the guillotine before feeding it in. And oftentimes I’ll crease the cover on our 646.

 

[jwheeler]

I keep wanting an offline solution to booklet making but I’ve made due with the SD-513 inline on my Konica 12000 until now. It’s definitely not fast nor is it super reliable but it’s been getting the job done. The slitter has constant jams where it collects paper in its wheels so it needs to be removed, cleaned and put back. It also has some limitations on thicker stock but they are fair limitations, I would say. Sometimes I want to pull the trigger on the pluck 500 series but I’m tight on room. The short run books are too convenient to run on the SD-513, but the longer jobs of 500-3000 books we run take a while. I’ll keep following this thread to hear what other need to say.

We're in the same boat. The SD-513 is just 'okay'. We're thinking of getting an offline booklet maker for faster production when we replace our current KM's. We're considering the plockmatic and Duplo lines.

 

[GVG]

Thanks for all the input!
We are going the Plockmatic route.

 

[Robohopar]

I see a lot of plockmatics on eBay that are for sale, anyone have pushback on why to buy new vs a low mileage used machine? I feel like these things are tanks.