Folding Recommendations for Duplo 618

[Rsias]

Hiya! Our shop is increasing volume - albeit many projects are still short runs, however we have requests for 5K-10K ranges and we obviously cant compete with manual creasing/folding processes, so we are looking at getting some finishing equipment. We print digital only, and most of our current work is from our Canon IP8000 and guillotine cutter. I had a meeting with Duplo today and the SCC (618) is a no-brainer, but I don't know where to start with folding, and where it could jive with the 618.

They priced out a DF1300L table top folder for us, and I'm not sure if that's our best bet. I quickly realized that there isn't an all-in-one folding solution for us considering 20#-130# Cover, coated and non coated. With the Duplo 618 handling the creasing for us, does anyone have a recommendation for something in a table top unit that would be able to fold creased materials in the 80#/100# cover-coated range (as well as lighter weights) without getting into knife folding? I know that 130# cover will be a no-go, and that's okay. I'm aware that 80# cover is barely in that units effective folding range, but does creasing have any affect on that? The documents I've seen haven't been very clear about that, and I've heard of people cheating the paper weight via creasing.

Also, does anyone have experience with Duplo folders, or the 1300 specifically? I would love some insight! We are potentially looking at a Duplo 618, Duplo 150 Bookletmaker, and the 1300 folder and could potentially get a better deal buying all simultaneously, but I'm looking into other options as well, most specifically for folding.

Thank you!

 

[SoggyWinter]

Standard/Horizon, Duplo, and Morgana make creaser+folders that will die crease and fold cover media. The price for one of those is a bit over $30,000USD new. My team uses a Duplo 646 to crease coated text media up to 104gsm / 70# and run it through a baum 714 buckle folder at high speed without much issue. We are still hand folding creased cover media, but if our volume increases enough I'd buy a Horizon CRF362.

The Duplo 646 was a good investment overall, but the feeder is infuriating for the amount of double feeds we get and it needs constant babysitting for that reason.

 

[DYP]

I find the DF1300L will fold 80# and 100# cover weights just fine if they are creased first.

 

[kslight]

I have a duplo 646 and 150 booklet maker. I don’t do huge volumes of cover weight pieces that need folded, but if all you need is a half fold, and aren’t doing a million of them, I crease on the 646 then hand feed 80-100# cover into the dbm 150….often 3 sheets at a time. We have an old mbm folder for our large run / plain paper / multi folds….

Trifolds on heavy stock / etc we do by hand, but aren’t typically into the thousands for quantity…and creasing makes the handfolding not too tedious.

 

[kslight]

Standard/Horizon, Duplo, and Morgana make creaser+folders that will die crease and fold cover media. The price for one of those is a bit over $30,000USD new. My team uses a Duplo 646 to crease coated text media up to 104gsm / 70# and run it through a baum 714 buckle folder at high speed without much issue. We are still hand folding creased cover media, but if our volume increases enough I'd buy a Horizon CRF362.

The Duplo 646 was a good investment overall, but the feeder is infuriating for the amount of double feeds we get and it needs constant babysitting for that reason.

Do you have the side air option? That helps. It is a touchy machine for sure, success highly dependent on stock, environment, and the printer used (our previous printer dumped an insane amount of static into our prints…our new printer does not).

 

[Dito]

Ahoj! Objem našej predajne sa zvyšuje - aj keď mnohé projekty sú stále krátke, máme však požiadavky na rozsahy 5K-10K a samozrejme nemôžeme konkurovať ručným procesom ryhovania/skladania, takže hľadáme nejaké dokončovacie vybavenie. Tlačíme iba digitálne a väčšina našej súčasnej práce pochádza z nášho Canon IP8000 a rezačky s gilotínou. Dnes som mal stretnutie s Duplom a SCC (618) je nanič, ale neviem, kde začať so skladaním a kde by to mohlo s 618-kou jive.

Nacenili pre nás stolový priečinok DF1300L a nie som si istý, či je to naša najlepšia stávka. Rýchlo som si uvedomil, že vzhľadom na 20#-130# kryt, potiahnutý a nepotiahnutý, pre nás neexistuje riešenie skladania všetko v jednom. Vzhľadom na to, že Duplo 618 zvládne ryhovanie za nás, má niekto odporúčanie na niečo v stolovej jednotke, ktorá by dokázala skladať ryhované materiály v rozsahu 80#/100# s krycím povlakom (ako aj s nižšou hmotnosťou) bez toho, aby do skladania noža? Viem, že 130# cover bude no-go, a to je v poriadku. Som si vedomý toho, že krytie 80# je sotva v efektívnom rozsahu skladania jednotiek, ale má na to pokrčenie nejaký vplyv? Dokumenty, ktoré som videl, o tom nehovorili veľmi jasne a počul som o ľuďoch, ktorí podvádzali gramáž papiera krčením.

Tiež má niekto skúsenosti s priečinkami Duplo, alebo konkrétne s 1300? Uvítal by som nejaký prehľad! Potenciálne hľadáme Duplo 618, Duplo 150 Bookletmaker a priečinok 1300 a potenciálne by sme mohli získať výhodnejšiu cenu pri kúpe všetkých súčasne, ale hľadám aj iné možnosti, najmä skladanie.

Ďakujem!

Ahoj,
pred tromi mesiacmi som kúpil duplo dc 648 a eurofold touchline cf375.
Oba stroje sú skvelé. Duplo bola skvelá voľba podáva skvelo. Na brožúry tiež používame duplo dbm 150 už asi 7 rokov a funguje bezchybne.

 

[Shawnd]

Ahoj,
pred tromi mesiacmi som kúpil duplo dc 648 a eurofold touchline cf375.
Oba stroje sú skvelé. Duplo bola skvelá voľba podáva skvelo. Na brožúry tiež používame duplo dbm 150 už asi 7 rokov a funguje bezchybne.

Translation:

three months ago I bought a duplo dc 648 and a eurofold touchline cf375.
Both machines are great. Duplo was a great choice, it serves great. We have also been using the duplo dbm 150 for brochures for about 7 years now and it works flawlessly.

 

[Ynot_UK]

We have the Duplo DF-1200 with side air kit, which is the predecessor to the DF-1300, however looking at the specs of the newer machine, the substrate weights look similar/the same. It can take a bit of tinkering to get the different air settings right for various substrates (don't go by the tabled suggestions in the manual for coated stocks, they are plainly wrong and result in jams, or failure to lift on the input side) although in fairness it is a good, fast and compact machine for lightweight stocks when up & running.

However if like us, speed is not an issue and there is an attraction in being able to crease and fold heavier stocks in a single pass on a single machine, then the CF375 is well worth a look. We don't have one (yet), however the feeder and interface is the same Multigraf assembly as on Vivid's Matrix Omniflow feeder, and it is very good with an intuitive touch screen GUI.

Also, another +1 for the Duplo DBM150T booklet maker. We have a Plockmatic SQ104 squarefold unit on the end of ours which makes for a really good, ultra-compact footprint booklet making system at less than 1.5m length - perfect if your shop is tight on space.

 

[TJPrinter]

The Duplo DC-618 is a great little machine and I use one for all my short run trimming and scoring. As long as you know that those longer runs of 5,000 or 10,000 will have it tied up and running for a very long time you should be good.

The Duplo 646 was a good investment overall, but the feeder is infuriating for the amount of double feeds we get and it needs constant babysitting for that reason.

I put a cheap ionizing air blower near the feeder so it blows on the side of the sheets and solved the double feeding for me. You can find one for under $100, no need for anything expensive.

 

[Rsias]

Standard/Horizon, Duplo, and Morgana make creaser+folders that will die crease and fold cover media. The price for one of those is a bit over $30,000USD new. My team uses a Duplo 646 to crease coated text media up to 104gsm / 70# and run it through a baum 714 buckle folder at high speed without much issue. We are still hand folding creased cover media, but if our volume increases enough I'd buy a Horizon CRF362.

The Duplo 646 was a good investment overall, but the feeder is infuriating for the amount of double feeds we get and it needs constant babysitting for that reason.

Soggy, do all stocks double feed on your 646, or only the lighter or heavier sheets? If pulling the trigger we are also adding in a side air unit (only adds like $240) and that is supposed to help with feeding heavier coated stocks.

 

[rcreveli]

We ran the hell out of the Multigraf CF375. Unlike a lot of other creasing solutions it runs text weights. 20# bond is pushing your luck but, 60# ran very well, it helps that the product is pulled from the top of the stack.
We did a lot of saddle stitched books. We would crease all of the cover and feed them inline on a plockamatic finisher.
We regularly ran a 20m perf job for a customer. It was 5 perfs + a center perf at a right angle on 60#. It was done in one pass.
We ran double gate jobs by putting 3 creases into the paper and doing to folds. We would make the final fold by hand.
The machine ran stringers like a champ.

 

[SoggyWinter]

Soggy, do all stocks double feed on your 646, or only the lighter or heavier sheets? If pulling the trigger we are also adding in a side air unit (only adds like $240) and that is supposed to help with feeding heavier coated stocks.

I have the side air. Stocks below 270gsm are double feed prone, especially 176gsm to 216gsm.

 

[Pennypicher]

For all the Duplo air feed machines those feed belts stretch and underneath the belts that little tab wears out causing doubles to feed. Those little items cause lots of headaches.

 

[Robohopar]

The Duplo DC-618 is a great little machine and I use one for all my short run trimming and scoring. As long as you know that those longer runs of 5,000 or 10,000 will have it tied up and running for a very long time you should be good.

I put a cheap ionizing air blower near the feeder so it blows on the side of the sheets and solved the double feeding for me. You can find one for under $100, no need for anything expensive.

I freaking LOVE my Duplo 618. Saved my life. I have a lot of short run jobs ranking from 100 business cards up to 1000 brochures. We also have a lot of short run folders...up to 100 or so, this thing trims and creases on point EVERY single time. I just let it run everything I throw at it.

I wouldn't go with any Duplo folders...I think even this new one they came out with they stopped selling from what I heard because it was bad. I actually don't crease everything with my 618, I bought the morgana pro xl so I just cut with the 618 and have the morgana crease and fold. But if you're looking to crease with the 618, I'd get the Baum folder maybe? Seen a friend use that combo.

 

[SirSpeedyCVA]

I got the 618 a year ago along with the table top folder — the 999 I think it was. The folder can be finicky at time, but it handles just about everything we’ve thrown at it, once we learned the setting tweaks.

 

[ReproElectroProspero]

Chiming in - have the Duplo 618 slitter/cutter/creaser AND the Duplo 1300L folder.

The folder has been able to handle everything we've thrown at it. Super happy with its performance. A major step up from our previous 1980s era manual setup Baum folder.
Love our 618 as well - however one thing that has bothered me about it is that it does NOT support 20#. Seems like none of thier major slitter/cutter/creasers do. We ran 20# on it for about a year without issue, then it started randomly destroying sheets without jamming. So our finished output would have random crumpled sheets every 5-10 pages. After getting Duplo support involved I learned that 20# (90gsm) is not supported and they won't help me figure out the issue. We ended up having to convert all of our 20# jobs that need cutting, creasing, or perfing - to 24# at a minimum.