Plockmatic 350/500 ... and question about feeding option to have automatic offline booklet production

[zpodraza]

Hi, I have Plockmatic 500 and I want add any collator or feeder to make an automatic offline booklet maker.
Now we put each set of pages manually, but with 3000 booklets it is a hard job.
And my question is:
- can I use Plockmatic HCI3500 Interposer like sheet feeder? Is any option to set how many pages from each drawer should be fed to have the whole set? Or is this Interposer only to work in line with Ricoh press?
- can I use any other feeding option I can use to have an automatic booklet maker? If yes, please let me know the brand, model, and any info which can help me understand how to connect it.
Thanks a lot for any response.

 

[Ynot_UK]

Hi, I have Plockmatic 500 and I want add any collator or feeder to make an automatic offline booklet maker.
Now we put each set of pages manually, but with 3000 booklets it is a hard job.

I've noticed these 350 and 500 booklet makers (more often than not in Ricoh clothing) appear on the second hand market fairly regularly and quite cheaply, in fact cheaper than a good condition standalone BM60.

Would I be right in thinking, the reason for this is, as they are designed to be an inline booklet maker, using them offline is a PITA, with there being no 'proper' manual feed attachment?

 

[cqb1988]

I have pbm350, the cover feeder can be used as a sheet feeder, but It can only load about 100sheets, it is worth to try if you booklet is only 8page( 2 sheets) ,otherwise hand feeding is faster.

start from 9mins 30sec shows you have to setup

 

[Ynot_UK]

otherwise hand feeding is faster.

OK thanks, but is the hand feeding clumsy because you are inserting into a slot that is designed to be auto fed from an attached device, as opposed to being designed as a hand feeder, or attachment, designed with the purpose of someone standing and dropping sets into it?

Can you post a photo of the machine side on, showing the slot, or better still a video of hand feeding sets this way?

 

[thermoprinter]

We hand feed to our Plockmatic 500. It's okay usually for 1000 or less booklets but can get labor intensive above that.

With our Plockmatic 350, we can set the number of pages to feed. For example, for a 12 page booklet, we would tell the Plock to feed every three pages and it would auto feed and stitch every three pages. I don't think this is possible with the Plock 500 (unless they upgraded it and added that feature).