Product of the Week

The reasons behind printers' moves to bring finishing inhouse are well documented - loss of control, loss of revenue, vulnerability to delays, poor quality and even traffic jams.

Fortunately, for those printers looking to bring stitching inhouse Muller Martini has a range of kit designed to support that exercise, beginning with the baby Valore. This bit of kit runs at 6,000 books per hour (bph) and has varying levels of automation and quick makeready functions for flexible production, which is much needed by in-house binderies. And for printers who want more books per hour than that, or trade finishers for that matter, Muller has launched a new middle-range stitcher series, the Primera, designed to handle a wide range of signature sizes and types without complaint, at highest-ever productivity levels in their class.

There are three models of Primera, each distinguished by their top speed, and each of the three has multiple automation levels. The models and their speeds are indicated by their names: the 110, an 11,000bph machine; the 130, a 13,000bph machine; and the 140 for 14,000bph. Sitting in front of the number is a letter indicating its level of automation. So A is for entry-level, with the possibility of adding a certain amount of automation to the stitcher, the trimmer and the stacker, but not the feeders. Only the 110 model can have an A-level of automation.

C is a halfway-house of automation: the feeders auto-time onto the gathering chain, the chain synchronises with the trimmer and they have Muller’s Copy Control signature quality system as standard. More automation can be added. Both the 130 and the 140 Primeras can have C-level automation.

E is the full-blown automation model, sporting Muller’s famed AMRYS (automated makeready system) controlled from a main touchscreen that talks to the feeders and cover feeder, the stitcher, the trimmer and the stacker. This is available on the 130 and 140 models. To add to this slightly bewildering level of choice, a full range of extras can ornament whatever model of Primera the printer chooses – including inserting, onserting, addressing and inkjetting.

The Primeras will replace the Bravo and Prima models. People were getting confused between Bravo and Prima, says Muller Martini’s technical sales specialist Richard Dance. This move will simplify our range. You just buy the one stitcher and configure it to your needs.

But the new Primeras are much more than just a range-rationalisation exercise. Under the new corporate laser-blue coloured hoods is a completely revamped machine with a more compact footprint than Muller has ever achieved before. A five-station Prima takes up the same floorspace as a six-station Primera and, given one of the target audiences for the new Primeras is printers bringing their work back in-house, this is a shrewd bit of design.

The Primeras’ feeders, a new design known as the 479, are fully mobile and modular and on the E140 they are extendable in increments of just one. They all possess what Muller’s engineers have dubbed the magic wheel – a small non-driven circular collet that supports the signature from underneath while it transfers from feeder to the chain, giving greater control, especially with lighter stocks. Furthering the cause of signature stability, the 479 feeders are also locked into place on a slant – a gentle 10-degree incline to the horizontal. This gives the sheet a natural slight curve to help pull it around the feeder drum, whereas, if it’s laying flat, the sucker bars are pulling down at the wrong angle, Dance explains. So, if we give it a downwards tilt to start out with, it reduces the clamping force necessary for the sucker bars, and that means less marking and more reliable feeding.

Fast changeover
While the Primera is not servo-motor driven, Muller has set out to make the feeders’ swap mechanisms as quick and easy as possible: just four bolts to undo, an electricity cable and an air pipe to disconnect, and the top of the feeder lifts off. The base of the feeders, being universal, stays put on the chassis. However, the need to swap feeders in the first place has been somewhat reduced on the 479 design, because Muller has added in a set of hinged brackets to each feeder’s hopper that, when swung into place, act as a small-size attachment and allows the 479 feeder to work with sizes from a maximum 480x320mm down to 90x80mm. 

While the JDF-compatible AMRYS system on the E140 automates most of the makeready, there are still mechanical elements to the process and Muller has made a point of designing such elements to be as easy and as fast as possible. Hence the new stitching heads, which are known as Q (or Quick) heads, using just a single tool to alter all settings. The Q heads are linked to the AMRYS, so that once the size of the book has been entered into AMRYS, the system calculates the position of the stitching heads and displays this on the screen for the operator. And individual touchscreens on all feeders have been added for precision adjustments. Any tweak made at a particular feeder can be fed back to the central AMRYS system and saved as part of the set-up routine for repeat jobs.

Quick measurements
One particularly thoughtful feature on the Primeras is the quick signature measurement device that’s positioned at arm level on the feeders. It’s simple and very helpful: a signature is laid on the measuring tray and the operator brings a sliding stop up to the edges of the signature to detect length and width. Once set, the operator can choose which feeders to send the measurement to.

A new quality control is a calliper wheel that automatically reads the thickness of the total gathered signatures making up the book, before it goes forward to be stitched. Rather than taking its reading from the middle or the front of the book, the new calliper works from the side. It’s more accurate, Dance says, because if you take the reading from the top of the book, where it’s folded, you can sometimes get air in there which distorts the reading. The new calliper wheel, he claims, gives almost 100% accuracy.

The 459 trimmer, again specially designed for the Primeras, uses automatic adjustment on the run. A touchscreen on the trimmer can be set to a certain level of trim tolerance, down to 0.5mm, and sensors monitor the trimmer’s knife positions. If the trim wanders outside the tolerance, the sensors tell AMRYS to move the backstops and the yoke timing to bring the book back into tolerance.

The Primeras were originally launched at Drupa, and Dance says the response from the UK has been good: since May, Muller Martini has installed an E140 and several C130s into the UK. Slightly to Dance’s surprise, most have gone into general commercial print houses, with only one so far going to a trade finisher – traditionally the backbone of Muller Martini’s customer base. I guess it’s not surprising when you think about the current climate, and how trade finishers in particular are suffering, he says. But still, I’d not have predicted this machine being a printer’s in-house tool as much as a trade finisher’s. 

SPECIFICATIONS

Max speed 14,000 books per hour
Max finished book size 475x310mm
Min finished book size 105x53mm
Max book thickness to be stitched 6.5mm
Price six-station Primera E140 with cover feeder and compensating stacker: £300,000 - £400,000
Contact Muller Martini 0845 345 3588 www.mullermartini.co.uk

THE ALTERNATIVES

Heidelberg Stitchmaster ST 450
Three models in the Stitchmaster range span from 9,000bph to 14,000bph and the STs are also varyingly automated. The ST 450, which roughly equates to the Primera E140, can produce a fractionally larger book, although not as thick, and its minimum book size is larger than the Primera’s, even with the optional small-size attachment (64x120mm). It is also JDF-compatible.
Max speed 14,000bph
Max finished book size 475x315mm
Min finished book size 80x120mm
Max book thickness to be stitched 6mm
Price six-station Stitchmaster ST 450 with cover feeder: £380,000
Contact Heidelberg UK 020 8490 3500 www.heidelberg.com

Hohner HSB 10000
Not a model that’s well-known in the UK, Hohner’s top machine has a high level of automation – comparable to the Primera, though it isn’t JDF-compatible. No small-size attachment, but an option for a larger signature size means it handles sections up to 460x350mm.
Max speed 14,000bph
Max finished book size 432x340mm
Min finished book size n/a
Max book thickness to be stitched 6mm
Price £280,000
Contact Hohner UK 01525 862628 www.hohnergmbh.de

Osako Tener Alpha
Osako’s top model has a high level of automation and the feeders in particular give the Primera’s equivalents a run for their money. Three levels of three-knife trimmer can handle books of 10mm, 14mm and 20mm thickness, although it’s not JDF-compatible.
Max speed 14,000bph
Max finished book size 480x320mm
Min finished book size n/a
Max book thickness to be stitched 7mm
Price £220,000
Contact Manroland UK 020 8648 7090 www.weareprint.co.uk

Purlux Nova 10
This Chinese machine is entirely manual, a fact reflected in its price, meaning it’s not a rival to the top-end Primeras – makeready takes around 20 minutes per job. Top-loading feeders mean continuous running, and quality control includes double detectors and a misfeed sensor.
Max speed 10,000bph
Max finished book size 440x300mm
Min finished book size n/a
Max book thickness to be stitched 4mm
Price six-station Nova 10 with cover feeder (no stacker): £125,000
Contact Encore Machinery 01582 668900 www.encoremachinery.co.uk