The Zip-A3E is a heavy duty, precision programmable cutter/slitter featuring a Windows® XP touch screen control.

The Zip-A3E combines unmatched productivity, layout flexibility, accuracy and easy of operation with the widest selection of precision rotary tooling available with any programmable cutter/slitter.

The touch screen computer control allows a high degree of automation with fast set up, and job format storage and retrieval. Operators are assisted by help and message screens during set up and operation. Help and message screens minimize operator workload and simplify troubleshooting. All set up and operational screens are easy to view and use with ample space provided by the 10.2" full color display.

Sheets can be registered using either the lead edge of the sheet or a registration mark. Switching between registration modes is a simple selection on the touch screen computer.

The Zip-A3E feeder can handle coated and un-coated, laminated and UV coated sheets. Infeed paper guides are adjustable with a single knob to the centerline of the machine. A second knob provides micro side-to-side registration adjustment. Non-marking wheels and rollers are used to feed and convey paper through the machine.

Programming a new job format is quick and easy. The operator goes to the Set Up screen and enters five pieces of information. These include: lead edge or registration mark mode, number of pieces being cut from each sheet, finished size of pieces being cut from each sheet, lead edge trim off and, if a crosscut gutter is required, the size of the crosscut gutter. Programming takes less than a minute and up to 100 programs can be stored.

Guillotine crosscutting can be programmed for a single "scissor" or a variable width "gutter" cut. A minimum product cut off length of 1 ½" makes the Zip-A3E ideal for tickets and other small format products. Competitive models require significantly larger minimum cut off length (3.35" for example) limiting the ability to format products efficiently or, in some cases, to run the products at all.

Zip-A3E rotary tooling cassettes are unique and offer many advantages over competitive designs.

Each standard slitting blade/hub assembly removes a .125" (1/8") gutter. This eliminates the need to "stack" two sets of scissor cut blades to remove a gutter. This allows a thinner gutter (0.125" Vs. 0.19685") which decreases product "spread" across the width of the sheet. Standard Zip-A3E slitting blades can slit products as narrow as 1" wide. Non-standard blade/hub configurations are available to slit .250" or .500" gutter widths.

Preconfigured rotary tooling cassettes ensure the tightest possible finished size accuracy. Unlike competitive models that can vary product width accuracy by as much as +/- 0.3 mm (+/- 0.0118" or 0.023622" total variation), Zip-A3E business card slitting width accuracy is +/- 0.0127 mm (+/- 0.0005").

The Zip-A3E is the only cutter/slitter that offers semi-slit  (slit-score) tooling for customers who semi-slit the fold line on greeting cards, and similar products, instead of scoring. This is especially important for graphics that bleed across the fold line of the card.

The ability to crosscut then inline rotary slit and semi-slit allows popular greeting card formats (11 1/4" by 7 13/16", 9 5/8" by 6 15/16", etc.) to be run two-up on 12" wide stock.

Standard size business cards are typically run in 24 or 25-up formats. The Zip-A3E can handle either configuration in bleed or non-bleed formats.

Cutting out mini-business cards are another ideal Zip-A3E application. In one popular format, 40-up, four-sided bleed mini-business cards are crosscut and slit in one pass.

The combination of short guillotine cut off length (1.5" minimum) with inline slitting and perforating make the Zip-A3E ideal for tickets. No competitive cutter/slitter can offer a similar single pass production capability.

A delivery conveyor is standard equipment on the Zip-A3E. The conveyor eliminates delivery problems associated with bins and allows product collection while the machine is running. This eliminates the need to stop production while removing product from the bins. Bins can be a particular problem on cutter/slitters running small products like business cards and tickets, because the small finished size tends to flip and/or jam in the bins. To deal with this problem, most bins for business cards are shallow. Shallow bins minimize card flipping and/or jams but must be cleared by the operator after every few sheets are fed through the machine (each sheet creates rows of 5 to 8 individual cards at delivery so the finished stack builds up quickly). The conveyor can be attached or removed, without tools, in a few seconds.

As you can see, the Zip-A3E is a unique production machine that is ideally suited to finish a wide range of multiple up digital products quickly, accurately and reliably.  

For additional information on the Zip-A3E programmable cutter/slitter, contact THERM-O-TYPE.

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