JBI EasyPunch or Docupunch Plus

[PrintMike]

I am currently running a couple Ricoh printers with the inline GBC punch module. We are getting a lot of jams and we had the similar issue when we had Xerox printers. From what I am hearing it is a GBC problem and they are all horrible and does not matter on the printer they are installed on. I am looking at an offline punch and I hear good things about the JBI DocuPunch and now there is a DocuPunch Plus but I am also looking at the smaller version which is called EasyPunch. I am looking for reviews on either of these machines so I know I am looking at a good piece of equipment. We are a small in-house print shop for a corporate headquarters. We do a lot of spiral punch orders so would only need one die. Let me know your experience with either of these machines and also if you agree that the GBC inline punch modules are horrible.

 

[criccidisk]

We had a 2000-era DocuPunch that served us well for a very long time. The 2023 unit that replaced it is a lot better. Usually we let ours chug along at the default speed of 60 cycles per minute (around 240 pages per minute), but depending on your project you can also increase it to 72 cycles per minute or lower it to 50 cycles per minute. Usually you get about five minutes of run time between loaded stacks at 60 cycles per minute depending on their thickness.

The only two drawbacks I can speak of for the unit:
* If you have a lot of curl to your printed paper, they can sometimes be a nightmare to feed, especially on your last few sheets to a stack. The machine uses a picking finger that has two adjustable pick settings; unfortunately, neither of them properly account for if your stack's curl has a high peak or trough in the picking finger's line of sight. Usually the best solution is to flip your feed stack upside down or build a chipboard bump for your stack.

* The exit stacker relies on gravity to properly stack your output. For 8.5 x 11 goods, this is completely fine, but you can have a mess on your hands with 5.5 x 8.5 goods since they can sometimes catch the side guides when falling into place (or worse, accidentally falling into a random spot in the exit stack and throwing your goods out of order). Again, this depends a ton on the curl of your printed paper, but usually my tried-and-true method of avoiding headaches is to reverse the positioning of the two exit side guides so there's more room for the exit stack. It's hard to describe, but the guides make a reverse-L shape by default that can sometimes make the exit stack too tight; when you switch them around, you have a larger L shape for things to fall in place.

 

[jwheeler]

We're looking at getting one of these as well because we are not happy with our in-line GBC unit on our KM's. Plus, we have to buy a new one every time we upgrade our printers. Additionally, we only have it on our B/W unit, but we run alot of color jobs that need to be punched as well. That's good feedback, thanks @criccidisk. It seems any finisher is going to have issues with paper curl.

As I understand it, the main differences between the two units are as follows:

DocuPunch Plus vs EasyPunch

1. Speed: 45,000 vs 9,000 sheets per hour
2. Paper capacity: 2,500 vs 1,000 sheets in the input/output trays
3. Media thickness: Min: 70 gsm, Max: 250 gsm vs Min: 80 gsm, Max: 200 gsm
   

 

[namelessentity]

I've always just used manual punchers. We have a Rino-O-tuff HD7700, but they're basically all the same. Unless you're doing huge quantities, I don't really think the automatic ones are worth the price. You can prob find a used hand punch from a shop that's closing for dirt cheap. We used to do 400+ books a month with just the hand punch. It wasn't my favorite thing to do, but my boss was never willing to drop 20 grand to automate it.

 

[PrintMike]

Thanks for all the feedback. Paper curl is always an issue but we can work around those problems. We only do around 250,000 impressions per month and not all of that is punch orders but a good part of it is. Hand punching can be done but my team is used to having an automated punch so I am trying to have something reliable. I think the EasyPunch is the way to go for my current volume and cost savings vs the DocuPunch Plus. I am working on trying to get them to swap the GBC inline punch to an offline punch or at least get a credit back for them and I can purchase the offline punch. We had Xerox and now Ricoh and they both jam the same. A vote for KM is also having problems with the inline punch. I think all the printer companies need to go to GBC and tell them to make a better product with more of a straight paper path or at least less of the bends that it currently has to go through. Paper does not like sharp turns. Thanks for all the input. It also gives me documentation to have them remove those modules.

 

[bcr]

I imagine a straighter paper path would entail a much taller unit to accommodate the actual punch elements

 

[Ynot_UK]

Many moons ago, we had a refurbished GBC AP2. It was the worst machine we ever bought... we subsequently spent the best part of £2k for GBC to upgrade it to AP2 Ultra spec, which involved a complete new intake mechanism being fitted. It would reliably punch plain paper, but would not do much digital 2-sided work without jamming. We eventually got rid of it, at a significant loss and got a Magnapunch 1 (the original) instead, which we still have to this day.
Volumes through the Magnapunch are not where they used to be, however at its peak we were putting over 500k A4 sheets through it each year. The operator (a family member) is so fast and so accurate on that machine, there's never been the temptation to throw thousands of pounds and give a much larger footprint in our limited space, to something more automated.
I'm a simple man and operate to the premise that if you're physically keeping hold of the substrate you're punching, drilling, whatever with a human hand... then your wastage will always be much lower than if it is entrusted to a feed, registration, exit and stacking mechanism.

 

[jwheeler]

We had Xerox and now Ricoh and they both jam the same. A vote for KM is also having problems with the inline punch.

I should add that our main issue is not jamming. The problem we have is one or two sheets out of every 5-10 books will have a crooked punch. It's such a pain to find which sheet that was out of a 100+ page document, reprint it, and punch it. Our solution has been to make 3-5 extra books that we can pull sheets from.

 

[PrintMike]

We had a tech out today and said there was a roller that was hard to turn by hand so he worked it loose and I ran a handful of books of maybe 500 sheets total. I know it is not much of a test but I had other work that needed to run. I doubt it is fixed and I am pushing to have them removed and replaced with an offline punch. I am thinking JBI EasyPunch would be good for our volume but if they are paying for it I may upgrade to the JBI DocuPunch Plus. We get the crooked punched sheets but it mostly jams on those and does not make it to the finished books.

 

[bcr]

In my experience the biggest issue with the inline punches is that the printer techs don't know that much about them.

 

[narseman]

We've had a DocuPunch for last several years. As been mentioned, curl is a problem. But it will punch flat text sheets all day long.
I've changed the main timing belt twice. And the exit wheels twice. The bearings wear out on the leading white Delrin wheels.
Over all, it's been a work horse for us. I have the older model. 2 speed. Run on low 80%. Run on high for smaller size sheets.
It's a machine. They always need something.