Announced at Ipex 2010 but shipping at the beginning of last year, Morgana’s CardXtra Plus is a very versatile single-pass cutting and creasing machine for sheets of paper or card up to just over SRA3 size (320 x 469.5 mm).
For short run, low margin jobs such as business cards this can be more efficient than a guillotine for those fiddlesome multiple cuts – the company reckons you can cut 250 standard cards in less than two minutes, a job that would previously take up to 18 cuts on a guillotine. What’s more it can crease the cards too if the customer prefers the folding variety. The cut and crease throughput is seven sheets per minute.
It can also handle all sorts of other work, from simple trimming of two-up printed sheets into pairs of A4, or trimming SRA3 down to A3 with creasing to form a 4pp brochure, through postcards, greetings cards, tent cards, comps slips, and virtually anything else you can think of that needs cutting and/or creasing. It’ll take paper from 105 g/m2 up to card with a maximum 0.4 mm thickness, equivalent to around 400 g/m2.
It’s fitted with a programmable cross-cutter and interchangeable rotary cutters for cuts in both directions. Up to 16 creases can be applied. The feed tray can accept up to 500 sheets (of the thinnest 105 g/m2 type), allowing for lengthy unattended runs.
It’s not a folder, so jobs that need this would usually be hand-folded after running through the machine. Suction feeding also helps with digital work, as the fuser oil used in some digital and copier toners doesn’t agree with some friction feeders.
While a CardXtra Plus would suit many of the finishing needs of a small print business, Morgana’s UK sales manager Ray Hillhouse says that they also sell well to larger printers, because of their set-up benefits for short run multi-cut work. ‘For example ProCo is a large printer in Sheffield that has a CardXtra Plus alongside a 115 cm polar guillotine,’ he says. ‘The same operator runs both. He can start the CardXtra Plus and then concentrate on the guillotine work while it’s running.’
CardXtra Plus costs £13,900. It was developed out of the long-established CardXtra cutter (currently priced at £8,490), which remains one of the company’s best sellers, according to Mr Hillhouse. ‘Just about everyone who has a digital press needs it. A lot are sold via press suppliers, which often include one as part of a deal for a press.’
The Plus model gains the Morgana Creasing Matrix, which is also fitted to other systems in its range. This makes creases in the machine direction so configurations can be set up such as: half sheet; double parallel/closed gate; engineering; gatefold; and letter/concertina.
The Plus is supplied with three standard cutter sets (CardXtra only has one). These are for business cards; trimming sheets down to size; and greetings cards. Changing them takes about 30 seconds. Once fitted they can be adjusted for different final job sizes. Other cutters can be supplied, with the US 2 inch business card option being popular for companies dealing with overseas customers. This is a very compact machine, measuring 1300 x 600 x 950 mm (LxWxH) and it weighs 70 kg. Fitted with castors, it’s easy to wheel up to where it’s needed, and stow it away afterwards. Cutting waste drops neatly into a hopper in the base of the cabinet.
The company claims that the CardXtra Plus’ accuracy is the best on the market and significantly better than some more expensive systems. It claims +/- 0.1 mm accuracy. A recognition sensor aligns to a registration mark on the printed sheets. Alternatively the paper edge can be detected.
The machine is supplied pre-programmed for 15 common job types, but operators can set up and store up to 15 of their own jobs in addition, using the control panel on the top of the machine. Morgana supplies the machine with a disk of PDF and EPS files with sample job layouts, and you can also download these individually from the company website. These can be used as guides for artwork – you use them as an underlay for creating templates in a design program. ‘If you spend the time to get the templates right, then it will pay off and save you hours at the finishing stage,’ Mr Hillhouse says.
Some Rips can also apply imposition schemes via hot folders. So it’s easy to set up a workflow where jobs come in via web to print and are routed to a hot folder that imposes them for the CardXtra Plus scheme then prints them virtually hands-off.
After printing you fit the appropriate cutting set on the CardXtra Plus, drop the sheets into the feeder, select the scheme on the control panel, and the rest is automatic.
Contact: www.morgana.co.uk
