Xerox square fold trimmer. Any good?

[gazfocus]

Just purchased a Xerox Versant 80 as a second printer (our main machine is a Konica C3070). The Xerox we’ve bought has the pro booklet maker and so am thinking of using that to make booklets when the need arises.
I’ve been offered the chance to buy a square fold trimmer to add to the machine and wondered whether anyone here has one and are they worth having?

 

[gregbatch]

Love it. Newsletters and booklets that lay flat and stack nicely in a box with a clean face trim right from the machine.

 

[gazfocus]

Love it. Newsletters and booklets that lay flat and stack nicely in a box with a clean face trim right from the machine.

Thanks. My Xerox has just been delivered and they’ve screwed the spec up so waiting to hear back now as the biggest issue is they’ve delivered an A-FN07 booklet maker and not the pro booklet maker we ordered, so presently cannot attach a square fold trimmer even if I wanted to

 

[idahodian]

It has many faults. I had two 700i with them, now two 3100. For a 20 sheet booklet we can only send 25 sets, have to clear the fore edge trimmings box, lots of faults caused by a trimming piece getting up in the cutter area, always ends up wasting 5 sheets every time. I would have preferred an off line large duplo, morgana or standard, they will outlast the printer, but the boss did not like the price. We have service calls nearly every time we have a large (over 100) booklets, and that means down a day waiting.

 

[gregbatch]

It has many faults. I had two 700i with them, now two 3100. For a 20 sheet booklet we can only send 25 sets, have to clear the fore edge trimmings box, lots of faults caused by a trimming piece getting up in the cutter area, always ends up wasting 5 sheets every time. I would have preferred an off line large duplo, morgana or standard, they will outlast the printer, but the boss did not like the price. We have service calls nearly every time we have a large (over 100) booklets, and that means down a day waiting.

Never really saw those kind of issues unless you tried to trim too much off.

 

[azehnali]

I have about 10 in the field running for the past 10 years without a single issue

 

[kslight]

For the right application, they can work decently. We had two. They are perfect for a church / hospital print shop but I wouldn’t base a business around them.

They are quirky, sometimes prone to jamming, making bad books…it can be sensitive to the type and size of paper you put through it of course…I no longer use those machines but IIRC the biggest issue was the trimmer, jams and under/over trimming in the middle of a run, if you didn’t trim then you had a lot fewer problems. Of course you can’t go very thick either. The technicians never know how to do anything with third party accessories so you’d just hope you got lucky. I greatly prefer an offline unit and that’s what I have now.

 

[AP90]

We have one attached to our 3100 with 6 million clicks. We do ALOT of booklet work and it runs like a champ for us. It will have the occasional problem but I'm not experiencing the problems a few others on here have mentioned. We do all the way up to 120 page booklets on it. Lays super flat and so nice to be face trimmed in line, all while running at or near rated speed. For the 3100's with the buffer unit it will not stop the machine from printing or slow it down to a crawl. We regularly do 60-80 page booklets in runs of 200-500 and it will run like a champ.

Biggest downside is the small catch tray like mentioned above. I think for a 60 page booklet we get between 35-45 before it needs to be cleared. Now I have heard of a solution if your in a crunch and need to run it overnight/unmonitored. Apparently a customer took off the front and back covers. They then fixed the switch so it still "saw" the tray inserted. Duct taped a trash bag to the front and put a decently powerful fan on the other side of the unit to blow the trimmings into the trash bag. I guess if the necessity arrises then there's always a work around lol.

 

[Lankey]

Agree with most posts on here, it's a great piece of kit but does have it's issues and limitations like already mentioned.
It works best on thicker books (28 page and up), if it's just say a 80gsm 16 page book it usually won't flatten and trimming won't make much difference.
We got ours second hand and have had great use out of it (do a few basic monthly newsletters plus other infrequent book jobs and the machine is self maintained so no click costs) but we keep our kit longer than most, would suggest that if it's at xerox price and you change your machines every few years you will struggle for a return on investment, if it's a cheaper 2nd hand one not from xerox then then it could be worth a punt to see how you get on with it but would guess that xerox won't repair it under contract (although ours is still going strong without breaking).

If it's a choice of the squarefold trimmer or an entry level offline booklet maker then it's a whole new question..............
I would suggest the type of work that you do / aim to do would in my opinion be the deciding factor depending on what other kit you have available to use, if you are doing basic paper stock that doesn't bleed and is predominantly a3 fold and staple to a4 colour and/or black and white jobs that have quite a few sheets to them then a squarefold trimmer would be a great asset.

If you are doing a lot of smaller (in terms of physical size) booklet jobs, full bleed booklets, custom size booklets, thicker or laminated cover jobs then an offline booklet maker would be the way to go.

A few points to consider:

Assuming you have the xerox on contract and are paying per click regardless of size running a4 fold to a5 books will cost you twice the amount in click charges running booklets inline rather than using a guillotine and offline booklet maker. Greyscale clicks won't make much difference but colour clicks soon add up especially on longer runs, if you are selling print then you can't be competitive on colour a5 booklet jobs.

Inline won't allow full bleed books (cover yes by pre-printing and using the inserter) - although we do fudge it around sometimes to finish complete books from the inserter tray (print using sra3, cut down and then print from the inserter tray). If the bleed is on the trim edge and high coverage static usually drags the strips through triggering sensors thus creating jams.

The limitation (at least on the 700 machine) for the cover is 160gsm, although have managed 200gsm creased covers but it really rattles through the finisher (doesn't sound good).

Bespoke size booklets are a pain inline and also very limited.

 

[Ynot_UK]

I have about 10 in the field running for the past 10 years without a single issue

I don’t think there’s any piece of finishing equipment that runs for ten years without a single issue. Excluding the boat anchors that people have given up on and the options that for whatever reason were specced without a known purpose hence have never been used.

 

[azehnali]

I don’t think there’s any piece of finishing equipment that runs for ten years without a single issue. Excluding the boat anchors that people have given up on and the options that for whatever reason were specced without a known purpose hence have never been used.
maybe you should move to southern CA
maybe the beautiful weather has something to do with it

 

[tngcas]

We don't use our face trimmer (on two v2100s) because it tends to curve the books no matter what we try. My understanding is that it's a rotary cut and not a guitine in there. It's possible if you were only using it for thinner books (3-4 sheets) it might be great but as soon as we get towards 9 sheet books then we start seeing 10-15% of the books come out not square. The square fold works great though.

 

[gregbatch]

We don't use our face trimmer (on two v2100s) because it tends to curve the books no matter what we try. My understanding is that it's a rotary cut and not a guitine in there. It's possible if you were only using it for thinner books (3-4 sheets) it might be great but as soon as we get towards 9 sheet books then we start seeing 10-15% of the books come out not square. The square fold works great though.

Ours was definitely guillotine. The guillotine is a shear with a diagonal blade. If the blade gets dull it can start pushing the books as it cuts. If it's pushing when new, something is wrong. It's not holding the book tightly, the blade isn't tight enough to the shear, or they simply don't make it like they used to. Ours was actually a Plock with Xerox branding.

That said, the square fold alone makes a huge difference if you are trimming on the cutter because the books are flat and stack nicely. When we had a Plock on a Ricoh, we didn't fork out the big bucks for the 3 side trim. It wasn't worth it when trimming on the cutter was so easy.

 

[PricelineNegotiator]

We have one attached to our 3100 with 6 million clicks. We do ALOT of booklet work and it runs like a champ for us. It will have the occasional problem but I'm not experiencing the problems a few others on here have mentioned. We do all the way up to 120 page booklets on it. Lays super flat and so nice to be face trimmed in line, all while running at or near rated speed. For the 3100's with the buffer unit it will not stop the machine from printing or slow it down to a crawl. We regularly do 60-80 page booklets in runs of 200-500 and it will run like a champ.

Biggest downside is the small catch tray like mentioned above. I think for a 60 page booklet we get between 35-45 before it needs to be cleared. Now I have heard of a solution if your in a crunch and need to run it overnight/unmonitored. Apparently a customer took off the front and back covers. They then fixed the switch so it still "saw" the tray inserted. Duct taped a trash bag to the front and put a decently powerful fan on the other side of the unit to blow the trimmings into the trash bag. I guess if the necessity arrises then there's always a work around lol.

Only problem we ever had with our machine running books was a 12-16 page 8.5 x 11" booklet that was printed on 65# Lynx (cover and interior). Other than that, the machine literally did booklets on command without any issues and was incredibly accurate. If you are small to medium volume, it is a great option. Probably my favorite Xerox add-on on any machine.

 

[AP90]

Only problem we ever had with our machine running books was a 12-16 page 8.5 x 11" booklet that was printed on 65# Lynx (cover and interior). Other than that, the machine literally did booklets on command without any issues and was incredibly accurate. If you are small to medium volume, it is a great option. Probably my favorite Xerox add-on on any machine.

Yeah we do a fairly large volume on it. At min 10k books a month on it and its held up pretty well. I think its got a new set of motors and blade since we've had it. As far as favorite add ons go, im pretty fond of the 2 sided trimmer as well. Sometimes heavy coverage covers dont cut so well on it but just about never have problems with it. Makes it so nice to just grab the books straight from the exit tray and box up.

 

[PricelineNegotiator]

Makes it so nice to just grab the books straight from the exit tray and box up.

Extremely underrated. Only need to empty the dustbins every hour or so depending on the run...and it takes a minute or so and the machine is running again.

 

[gregbatch]

Thanks. My Xerox has just been delivered and they’ve screwed the spec up so waiting to hear back now as the biggest issue is they’ve delivered an A-FN07 booklet maker and not the pro booklet maker we ordered, so presently cannot attach a square fold trimmer even if I wanted to

Any luck with getting that straight with Xerox?

 

[gazfocus]

Any luck with getting that straight with Xerox?

Bought the printer from a Xerox dealer (used). They’ve acknowledged it was an error and are going to swap the finisher for the correct one, and if I buy the square fold trimmer, they’ll come set it all up for me.

 

[azehnali]

Bought the printer from a Xerox dealer (used). They’ve acknowledged it was an error and are going to swap the finisher for the correct one, and if I buy the square fold trimmer, they’ll come set it all up for me.

Can you ask them for the part number of the cable that connects from the squarefold to finisher when they install
thanks

 

[pippip]

Just curious with the square fold, what's the process with creasing, if needed?
On heavy covers with correct grain direction and spine printed coverage does it require a crease(s)?