Zip-A3 Cutter/Slitter

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THERM-O-TYPE Business Card Slitters, Business Card Cutters are available for large and small production facilities. The Zip-A3 is designed to handle print-on-demand business cards, playing cards, tickets, post cards, greeting cards and other multiple-up products commonly produced using digital output equipment on sheets up to 12 ½” by 20”.

The Zip-A3 programmable cutter/slitter offers several unique capabilities:

Inline rotary gutter-cut slitting, scoring and perforating capabilities.
These capabilities are especially important for customers producing ticket, foldover business cards and two-up greeting cards.

Crosscutting can be registered from the edge of the sheet or a registration mark.
Edge registration mode is usually used when running black or dark colored stocks. The registration mark mode is the most popular registration mode because it automatically compensates for vertical registration errors.

Processing laminated or un-laminated sheets.
The Zip-A3 feeder, guillotine cutter, paper advance mechanism, rotary tooling cassette and delivery are designed to handle laminated and un-laminated sheets.

Processing a laminated web of paper.
This capability is important to customers who use inexpensive laminate to protect toner image areas and to simulate UV coating.

Operates with light and dark colored stocks, including black.
The Zip-A3 optical registration system can be set to detect almost all paper color and finish combinations.

Minimum crosscut length of 1 ½".
This feature allows two rows of tickets to be crosscut, then slit and perforated in a single pass.

A friction feeder is used on the Zip-A3. Maximum feeder paper capacity is rated at up to 1 ½" of stock. Paper side guides are adjustable with a single knob to the centerline of the machine. A second knob provides micro side-to-side paper position adjustment. Non-marking feed wheels are used to advance stock into the machine.

A guillotine cutter crosscuts stock as it passes through the machine. Crosscut position information is easily entered and can be stored. The crosscut can be registered from either the edge of the paper, or from a registration mark printed at the lead edge of each sheet. Registering from a mark compensates for vertical imprint registration errors. Lead edge registration is most often used when running black or dark colored stocks. Programmable crosscutting allows a scissor-cut or a variable size gutter to be removed. The guillotine cutter also removes lead and tail edge trim. After crosscutting, sheets are conveyed to the rotary tooling cassette.

A removable slitting/scoring/perforating cassette is mounted at the delivery end of the machine. 6mm (.236") wide gutter-cut slitting blades are typically used to remove bleeds. Optional 1/8" (.125") wide gutter-cut blades are also available. While pre-configured cassettes are normally used, gutter-cut slitting blade spacing can be adjusted within the cassette. The space between the guillotine cutter and cassette allows two-up 8 ½" by 11" sheets to be cut from an over-size A3 sheet. Various combinations of slitting, scoring and perforating blades and hubs can be supported in cassettes.

Removable, pre-configured cassettes allow standard products to be easily and uniformly produced. Format changeover, using pre-configured cassettes, takes about a minute. These cassettes offer superior flexibility, accuracy and versatility over machines with fixed tooling or machines that require disassembly and re-assembly each time a different job format is run.

Finished material is delivered to a platform located at the delivery end of the machine. Partitions are attached to the delivery platform magnetically. Individual partitions are easy to install and adjust.

An optional, slow delivery conveyor is available. The delivery conveyor can be run in manual (on/off) or automatic mode. When running in the automatic mode, the delivery conveyor is turned “on” when the rotary tooling cassette drive is activated. This mode improves product delivery onto the conveyor.

Operators can switch between the standard delivery and the optional delivery conveyor in less than a minute without using any tools.

The Zip-A3 can easily handle 24-up business card formats printed on oversize A3 sheets. Using a gutter-cut guillotine crosscut and gutter-cut slitting blades, four-sided bleed cards can be produced. Up to eight, 24-up business card sheets can be run through the Zip-A3 per minute. This allows a five hundred business card order (21 sheets of 24-up cards) to be produced in just over two and a half minutes.

The Zip-A3 programmable cutter/slitter is not a high production business card slitter. However, the Zip-A3 offers a unique combination of capabilities and features that make it ideal for any digital output production facility.

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