Offline Booklet Maker - Saddle Stitcher trimmer

[gtmo]

Need Imput!

Considering a offline saddle stitcher for digital printing. We have looked at Duplo
DSF-2200/150 and DSF-2200/350.

Would these type of booklet maker (sheet feeder) be better for digital printing were I can get the books already collated and then finish with these machines? or the traditional type with the towers be a better solution?

Any input is greatly appreciated!

 

[davidspiel]

Take a look at our MBM Stitch Fold booklet maker. You can add collating pockets or a trimmer:

Stitchers and Booklet Makers

 

[markhunt]

Production sheet feeders can usually operate with or without collating towers, so you can support digitally-collated output (from your digital press) and conventional output (from your offset press) through the same saddlestitching system. For example, see the Standard Horizon HOF-400: http://www.sdmc.com/docs/products/HOF400USforWEB.pdf

 

[Eighty7]

Most of the print shops I visit have moved away from regular collating towers. However, some collating towers can be programmed as feeders, so the collating tower is somewhat reinvented.

Feeding from something like that Horizon HOF-400 with the CF-400 cover feeder attached to an SPF-200A/FC-200A makes for an impressive saddle stitching/booklet making machine. I've seen a new one of those systems get installed not far from me.

The MBM items mentioned by Spiel are nice too if you don't need the capacity offered by the Horizon line above.

I can't speak for the Duplos as I don't get to be around them much.

 

[lfelton]

Most of the print shops I visit have moved away from regular collating towers. However, some collating towers can be programmed as feeders, so the collating tower is somewhat reinvented.

Feeding from something like that Horizon HOF-400 with the CF-400 cover feeder attached to an SPF-200A/FC-200A makes for an impressive saddle stitching/booklet making machine. I've seen a new one of those systems get installed not far from me.

The MBM items mentioned by Spiel are nice too if you don't need the capacity offered by the Horizon line above.

I can't speak for the Duplos as I don't get to be around them much.

We have this Horizon system, plus the inline creasing and inline slitting and it is very impressive. One tip is to ask the supplier to install the "digital" rollers (they are slightly different from the default ones that ship with the machine). The other thing to bear in mind is that the HOF can't feed CD size, so you have to drop those through by hand one by one. You also can't feed any spine width <200mm through the main tray of the HOF, so you have to use the cover feeder. That means you need to run all <200mm spine jobs as mixed media on your digital presses, which is a bit of a PITA. Overall it's a good machine as long as you fully understand the specifications and how to get the best out of it.

Static is a bit of an issue on this machine due to the way that the accumulator works, but that may vary according to the type of digital press you use. We have some jobs (for example heavy toner on gloss paper) where we know that it has to sit overnight before we can run the job without jamming. You might THINK that the job is static free, but the way the pages are handled in the accumulator means that they build up a big charge and stick together like mad.

One final tip: if you go with the inline slitting you need to understand that the waste conveyor belts are very low down on the machine. This means that it can't be run without a conveyor. Not at all. It will fill a low sided bin in minutes. That's no problem, you just need to order up a suitable conveyor at the same time as the machine. We have ours set up to dump straight into a large recycling container (the forklift type one so there's no further waste handling) and that works like a charm.

I think we were one of the first in Europe with the full monty (HOF / slitting / creasing, etc.) so happy to share experiences and confirm it's a good machine. I was skeptical at first of the claim of 40K sheets / hr run, but given the right job it really does fly.