Duplo DC-646 v Duplo DC-618

[Pennypicher]

Not to put people out of their job but from what I see in shops that do say business cards is someone stands at the cutter for hours cutting. With this type of machines, you set the initial program load the sheets and walk away. Go over to the cutter and continue with another job. Come back when the cards are done. No need to babysit the unit. Creasing usually done on a folder?? Set the Duplo up and run 1 sheet check for correct set up. If not fix and run. Much quicker than resetting the folder and better crease. Just some examples. I have never met anybody that was not happy with their purchase.

 

[TJPrinter]

I’m not picking on Duplo but I think most of these finishing pieces are overpriced. I do have a 618 and love it but I would like it a whole lot more if it were faster and less expensive. Would I load it up to cut down 2,500 brochures, no or 5,000 postcards, no. Those jobs all go on the guillotine. It’s great for short runs that are just a bottleneck for cutting and creasing. The 618 is the most reliable piece of equipment I have in the shop, I load it up and walk away. It’s busy working while I’m working on something else. I never check on it, I either load paper or take paper off the other end and there's no waste.

I’d have a better ROI if I bought a $29,000 plasma cutter but I’m not in that business . . . not yet.

 

[TJPrinter]

Swapping rollers? Keep them clean with mild stuff like Simple green. Slitters can be changed as a whole head assy or rebuilt with just new blades. New heads are more $$ but rebuilding takes more labor$$. Not a huge savings. Yes the cutter and its motor get replaced as a whole unit. They wear out about the same time.

Do you have a source for the replacement blades?

 

[Ynot_UK]

Standard guillotine. Now that you say it I don't know why the term stack cutter is getting used recently.

For clarification I guess... Google "paper guillotine" and see what results you get!
Although on a professional print forum I imagine most people know what we think of as a guillotine versus a "trimmer", "personal guillotine" or whatever else those things are badged as.

 

[jwheeler]

... but I would like it a whole lot more if it were faster and less expensive.

I feel that way about every machine we have!

 

[BigSi]

I agree, I always think these are an amazing bit of kit but i do think it's a complicated ROI calculation which alot of printers get wrong.

We have a stack cutter so it would take a huge increase in jobs to justify something like this.

Yes I find the ROI on a DC618 (or similar) hard to work out. I often hear printers justify the purchase after its done (no one likes to think they may have made a mistake). A common theme is- you can just set up and leave it to work itsself (there by freeing a staff member to do something else) or it
clears a bottle neck on the guillotine. I don't deny these may all be valid but it does assume that you are reasonably busy ALL the time.
Has any one out there ever actually done a spread sheet? obviously different for different parts of the world. Would love to see one. Out of interest a new DC618 is around 31K in this part of the world. (New Zealand).
Would love to get your feed back.

 

[TJPrinter]

Yes I find the ROI on a DC618 (or similar) hard to work out. I often hear printers justify the purchase after its done (no one likes to think they may have made a mistake). A common theme is- you can just set up and leave it to work itsself (there by freeing a staff member to do something else) or it
clears a bottle neck on the guillotine. I don't deny these may all be valid but it does assume that you are reasonably busy ALL the time.
Has any one out there ever actually done a spread sheet? obviously different for different parts of the world. Would love to see one. Out of interest a new DC618 is around 31K in this part of the world. (New Zealand).
Would love to get your feed back.

This is a great point and I think it varies greatly from shop to shop. For me, cutting is a necessity but not very profitable and not the best use of my time. If you’re a larger shop and have a dedicated bindery person, the numbers may look a lot different.

I started to eliminate the time I was spending at the cutter by buying a like new demo of a Nagano CT620 card extra (same as Morgana), this was just for business cards. Finally printing and cutting full bleed business cards became profitable. When the Nagano couldn’t keep up with some of the longer runs and heavier stock, I found a used Rollem business card slitter. The next issue was short runs of full bleed postcards, greeting cards with creasing, brochures and rack cards. The Duplo 618 came along and solved another time killer and now I have several real estate agents that I send out “just sold” postcards whenever they sell a house. Since the quantities of these are low, 50-250 per mailing it would be difficult to be competitive with the larger online houses that can gang run these jobs and then combine them for postal discounts. A spread sheet wouldn’t calculate the lost opportunity for these jobs.

Having the ability to load and walk away is a big part of being able to justify the cost. I didn’t need one to finish jobs, I already had the guillotine cutter and a dedicated Rollem for creasing. In my situation it became more about the lost opportunity to take on more shorter runs and to use my time more efficiently by doing something else at a higher rate per hour (running the Versant). Short run jobs can be very profitable if you can eliminate the hands-on time to complete the job.

Besides all the above, I’m getting older and closer to retirement, so I have less interest in working long hours for little gain. The Duplo never takes time off, complains or makes mistakes that requires reprints, and that makes me a bit happier.

 

[PricelineNegotiator]

For me, cutting is a necessity but not very profitable and not the best use of my time.

A spread sheet wouldn’t calculate the lost opportunity for these jobs.

In my situation it became more about the lost opportunity to take on more shorter runs and to use my time more efficiently by doing something else at a higher rate per hour (running the Versant). Short run jobs can be very profitable if you can eliminate the hands-on time to complete the job.

Besides all the above, I’m getting older and closer to retirement, so I have less interest in working long hours for little gain. The Duplo never takes time off, complains or makes mistakes that requires reprints, and that makes me a bit happier.

I love how people try to count the beans about this machine. It's literally the most obvious purchase ever, especially if you're quite busy.

The same is analogous to not being able to afford or justify imposition software. Your job is to SCALE your company, what things enable you to SCALE? Your job is not to shoot yourself in the foot arguing over these things. There are some things you can't afford not to do.

I'll note that scaling requires you to make decisions that are manageable and won't kill the company by various means.

Also, your total output of your factory is dictated by how fast you can turn around the average job. If you lower the time it takes to complete jobs, that means you can do more jobs!

 

[Pennypicher]

Do you have a source for the replacement blades?

Duplo still sells them as a single part. You need top and bottom blade in each head.

 

[tngcas]

Has any one out there ever actually done a spread sheet? obviously different for different parts of the world. Would love to see one. Out of interest a new DC618 is around 31K in this part of the world. (New Zealand).
Would love to get your feed back.

I agree with Priceline - It's an obvious purchase for us but we are primarily short-run only print shop. It's a staffing/training issue for us. With the DC-618 I don't have to spend nearly as much time training staff. They just select the matching template in the DC-618 and hit start. While the system is cutting the cards they just loaded (business cards, postcards, tickets, folded cards etc) they can prep the box and label for shipping or if it's a local pickup prep the final package, come back get the cards and mark the job done. I don't have to have anyone spend extended time at the guillotine cutter except for larger jobs. Everything else prints and ships quickly and rarely with mistakes in cutting.

I can't fathom operating a shop without it to be honest. In the amount of time someone would have to spend just standing at the guillotine I would have all our jobs out the door.
$30,000 divided by 60 months = $500/mo. I easily clear that amount in just in rush service fees that allow me to complete jobs on a 4-hour turnaround.

 

[BigSi]

I agree with Priceline - It's an obvious purchase for us but we are primarily short-run only print shop. It's a staffing/training issue for us. With the DC-618 I don't have to spend nearly as much time training staff. They just select the matching template in the DC-618 and hit start. While the system is cutting the cards they just loaded (business cards, postcards, tickets, folded cards etc) they can prep the box and label for shipping or if it's a local pickup prep the final package, come back get the cards and mark the job done. I don't have to have anyone spend extended time at the guillotine cutter except for larger jobs. Everything else prints and ships quickly and rarely with mistakes in cutting.

I can't fathom operating a shop without it to be honest. In the amount of time someone would have to spend just standing at the guillotine I would have all our jobs out the door.
$30,000 divided by 60 months = $500/mo. I easily clear that amount in just in rush service fees that allow me to complete jobs on a 4-hour turnaround.

Yes it does make sense for most digital print shops. I guess it depends a lot on the type of work you do and the skill level of your staff. If you already have a good guillotine operator on board who needs to be kept busy. Fyi. Myself and my ace guillotine operator can trim x250 bcards in 15mins. (x21 up from a SRA3 sheet). Now if you have x10+ of these to do per shift. It would definitely make sense. Myself it is more like an average of x2-3 per shift. I guess I need to get busier.

 

[SirSpeedyCVA]

618 changed my life. Financed. It so the payment is manageable, Even. Got the table top friction feed folder to go with it. Best $$ Ive spent

 

[tngcas]

Tech who installed the machine said the rollers should last a very long time. Blades not so sure. Hopefully sooner than later someone can share their experience about swapping them. I know the cutter is just an easy swap but can cost a pretty penny. Blades probably need to be replaced by a tech. What's the sequence of buttons you press to get into the service section to check the page count? I'm curious about mine.

We've been having trouble with our DC-618 not fully ejecting sheets and the problem is getting worse with time. We clean the rollers regularly but we've put about 700k prints through the machine in the last 20months. The repair tech says we probably need to replace the rollers as they wear out. There's 9 of them and he said they are $200 each.
Thoughts? $2k isn't the worse but I'm also not super excited about spending that much.

 

[SoggyWinter]

We've been having trouble with our DC-618 not fully ejecting sheets and the problem is getting worse with time. We clean the rollers regularly but we've put about 700k prints through the machine in the last 20months. The repair tech says we probably need to replace the rollers as they wear out. There's 9 of them and he said they are $200 each.
Thoughts? $2k isn't the worse but I'm also not super excited about spending that much.

We had to do the roller replacement on our 646 for around that amount to address registration issues. Also 1600 for a new guillotine blade.

 

[Pennypicher]

We've been having trouble with our DC-618 not fully ejecting sheets and the problem is getting worse with time. We clean the rollers regularly but we've put about 700k prints through the machine in the last 20months. The repair tech says we probably need to replace the rollers as they wear out. There's 9 of them and he said they are $200 each.
Thoughts? $2k isn't the worse but I'm also not super excited about spending that much.

I had one customer that was told to rotate the rollers end for end. Gets a little more life from them. But is it worth it? Ya $200 each roller. Ive been finding 750-1 million sheets is about the max before everything is worn out. Spec at 1 million of 230gsm stock.

 

[TJPrinter]

I had one customer that was told to rotate the rollers end for end. Gets a little more life from them. But is it worth it? Ya $200 each roller. Ive been finding 750-1 million sheets is about the max before everything is worn out. Spec at 1 million of 230gsm stock.

Machine is worn out at 1 million sheets? Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but if true, this is a terrible life expectancy for the price tag on them. At just under $30,000 for a new DC-618 that would put the price per sheet at $.03. I already have a DC-618 so I hope this is not the case.

 

[Pennypicher]

No not the whole machine just the rollers. The rollers wear out from the far side to the operator side about 12 or 13 in depending on the width of the sheet. They are a soft roller they're made to help get rid of the static.

 

[jdodoubleg]

We've been having trouble with our DC-618 not fully ejecting sheets and the problem is getting worse with time. We clean the rollers regularly but we've put about 700k prints through the machine in the last 20months. The repair tech says we probably need to replace the rollers as they wear out. There's 9 of them and he said they are $200 each.
Thoughts? $2k isn't the worse but I'm also not super excited about spending that much.

We've had our 618 for almost 3 years now almost 2 million cuts. We have had to replace the blade once, but never the rollers. Cleaning the rollers helps a ton, also if you leave it on, it will rotate the rollers on its own every so often to avoid flat spots. We still run the original rollers with no problems.

Your ejection problem sounds like something I've come up against. Every time I have some issue that seems to be roller related I just clean them. Warm water and a light touch with a green scrubby. If you put it into cleaning mode, it will rotate the rollers for you as you open and close the lid.

 

[TJPrinter]

No not the whole machine just the rollers. The rollers wear out from the far side to the operator side about 12 or 13 in depending on the width of the sheet. They are a soft roller they're made to help get rid of the static.

That's a relief and good to know. Thanks!