Duplo Unveils Latest Digital Print Finishing

Duplo will launch its latest digital print finishing products at Drupa 2004. t

Duplo will launch its latest digital print finishing products to date at Drupa 2004, the new SCC (slit, cut and crease) booklet maker and its second generation digital slitting, creasing and trimming machine, the DC-645.

Its System 5000 and Duetto booklet making and collating systems will be on display as well as a variety of additional booklet making, printing, folding and bindery systems.

The SCC (slit, cut and crease) booklet making system incorporates a DSF-2000 sheet feeder (with optional barcode reader), the SCC unit, a DBM-500 booklet maker and a DBM-500 trimmer.

Designed principally for the colour digital market, the SCC system takes care of two common issues associated with colour digital output.

Firstly, the SCC unit side-slits and trims the head and foot of each sheet to provide an accurate full bleed trim which is registered by a CCD camera to the image, rather than to the physical dimensions of the sheet - this means that 'image drift' can be corrected.

It can also crease the cover and innermost sheets of the booklet, or all the sheets in the booklet so that image cracking on the fold-line is prevented.

For jobs where colour and black and white output is to be combined, the DSF 2000 sheet feeder is equipped with two feed trays, so that one can be loaded with oversize colour output from one digital press and the other with finished-size black and white output from a different digital device.

The coloured sheets are fed through the slitting, cutting and creasing units, while the finished-size black and white sheets are transported via a by-pass unit to the accumulation section of the booklet maker.

The entire set is re-integrated, with the coloured sheets to the same format as the black and white sheets, ready to be stitched, folded and trimmed.

Building on the success of the DC-545HCEX slitter, creaser and trimmer, Duplo is launching its second-generation machine - the DC-645.

Like its predecessor, the DC-645 has the ability to read printed images and automatically adjust and compensate for the common problem of image shift.

It trims, creases and slits in precisely the right place around the image every time, reducing waste and ensuring high quality and optimum productivity.

It also combines slitting, trimming and creasing in one single product - so applications requiring these three functions can be handled in a single pass.

Dominic Quennell, vice president of marketing at Duplo Corporation commented: "Since Drupa 2000, we have witnessed greater market demand for digital finishing systems that produce high quality, cost-effective results and are flexible in catering for a growing number of market applications.

By developing machines that communicate, our customers can upgrade or enhance their finishing systems as their businesses change and grow." For example, a traditional printer that wants to provide a combined offset and digital offering can easily upgrade a System 5000 to a Duetto by investing in a DSF-2000 sheet feeder, without incurring huge costs by purchasing a second independent digital finishing system.

By enhancing an existing system, a printer can expand business in manageable stages, claimed the company.

The DC-545HCEX can manage heavier substrates (up to 310gsm) and larger sheet sizes, and its ability to produce a six-page brochure.

It has been specifically developed to support the JDF industry standard.

The popular DC 545 HCEX model remains as an entry-level machine for those customers whose requirements in terms of substrate weight and format are not as wide as those catered for by the new DC 645.

The DBM 500 2KT provides a modular approach to trimming all open sides of a booklet.

An optional unit to the DBM 500T face trimmer, the DBM 500 2KT trims the head and foot of completed booklets, delivering them on a shingled belt delivery back to the operator station.

The initial settings are programmed from a user interface on the trimmer and are then transferred to the main memory of the finishing modules.

The operator can then call up frequently used jobs from a single user interface.

The benefit of Duplo's modular approach is that users can build up their system as their needs dictate, starting with a simple face-trim function then adding the head and foot trim when required.

The design of the complete Duplo booklet maker with three-knife trimming still enables side-stitched or corner-stitched sets to be produced.

The overall benefit is that full-bleed jobs can now be transferred directly from the press to the finishing device without the need for trimming on a guillotine before or after stitching and folding.

This saves a great deal of time and increases productivity.

Amongst other new products to be shown at Drupa is the System 5000 booklet making and Collating System that incorporates DC-10/60 collating towers.

Also on show will be the DBM-500 booklet maker, a face trimmer and a precision stacker that is designed for both the digital and offset markets.

Capable of producing up to 5,000 booklets per hour, the DMB-500 has a centre-referenced paper transport system that provides a fully automated sheet transport system.

The booklet maker easily accommodates the entire range from minimum to maximum sheet sizes without any manual operator intervention and caters for on-demand applications such as CD and DVD sized booklets through to A4, A3 and oversize commercial print formats, alternating between the formats at the push of a button or, when part of a near-line or in-line system, under the control of a UP3I compatible controller.

Based on the System 5000, the Duetto booklet making and collating system incorporates up to three DC-10/60 collating towers, a DSF-2000 sheet feeder and DBM-500 booklet maker, and is the first system of its kind to address both digital and offset requirements, claimed Duplo.

The ability of the DBM-500 to handle set-by-set and sheet-by-sheet output makes the system ideal for printers making the transition from offset to digital, allowing them to incorporate colour content and variable data into their finishing.

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