New Card Slitter ♥♥♥

[delooch]

We finally got our FD120 BC slitter set up today.  I AM IN LOVE.  Been cutting these fuckers out on a traditional guillotine since i was born.
EVERY CARD IS PERFECT AND THE SAME SIZE. If you understand my struggles you would appreciate this excitement 

Also delivered was a 3-station envelope inserter, which will unfortunately be the death of a fill-in employee.

[wonderings]

We still use a guillotine, like you it is what we always used. I have seen those slitters at shows but I always questioned how well they can work especially with digital prints and a not always aligned image. IS there any account or adjustment for skew? If I remember correctly some special marks are added to the print that the slitter reads to know where to cut?

[delooch]

So far so good. fortunately i dont have much skewing issue on this Ricoh 7110s, but that was my concern too going into this.

The slitter has 2 10-up preprogrammed jobs, one does 10-up w/no bleed, and the other accommodates a **tiny** gutter so you can do a 10-up with bleed. You can also program your own custom n-ups, which is good because i have a few 8-up pre-printed foil masters we still use a lot of.

It does have a side-side micro registration adjustment, so if the print is slightly off its easy to realign.

Its not blazing fast but i can drop 75 sheets in there, press the green button, come back 5 mins later and i have 750 perfect cut cards.  I have to say its quite nice, and i dont have to stress if the dumbfuck temp is making sure everything is centered. Thats worth the admission price right there.

We had one before, but it slit 3.5x8 4-up sheets.  It always skewed them no matter what, and there wasnt much you could do to correct it.  This one is pulling 8.5x11 sheets.

I get so goddamn mad when i see a card come back for a reorder thats been cut skewed or off center, theres no excuse for it except being lazy. I take this shit too personally sometimes..

[Tracy]

Sounds like a great machine!
  I do that too when I see some samples of previous jobs
I take the time to make sure my folds are perfect, I hate to see a fold off!

[DigiCorn]

Also delivered was a 3-station envelope inserter, which will unfortunately be the death of a fill-in employee.

What kind? We are possibly looking for a new one.

[delooch]

https://www.formax.com/solutions/card-cutters/fd-120-card-cutter

Its this one. At the end of the day, i liked it even more. You can program custom cuts and n-ups too.
On average i would say we pump out 2000 finished bc's a day. Not huge but we are an in-house.

Although it does run smooth there are a lot of moving parts involved when its doing its thing, im curious how long its going to old up.

[DigiCorn]

I was actually asking about the inserter... but as long as you posted it, how much did that set the city back?

[delooch]

the slitter was about 4k.

The inserter is a neopost ds-64i - https://www.neopost.com/folder-inserters/DS-64i

There was a HUGE cost difference - straight from neopost it was around 14k. the 2nd bidder - which was a the same thing with Formax badge on it was $19k, and neopost throws in a service contract.

its low volume (less than 20k monthly) but the jobs i get are <1000 pieces multiple inserts so its perfect

im at the end of my rope here labor-wise. with the co worker retiring and not getting replaced, i dont see this place thriving much longer.  pulling temps every time something labor-intensive comes up is exhausting. 

Im really trying to understand my place here in the scheme of things. On one hand administration is cutting staff and im on my last leg health-wise.  Signs of upcoming closure?  But then they go and drop $20k on new equipment to make sure i can still get by without live help.  I appreciate the gesture but its mixed signals.