While print shows around the world are finding it increasingly difficult to attract exhibitors and visitors that is far from the case in China. Four years ago China Print 2009 attracted 1,284 exhibitors and over 162,000 visitors from 108 countries. This year China Print 2013 is slated to be even bigger with an additional 100,000 ft² of exhibit space to bring the total area to over 1.25 million ft². All of this speaks directly to the strength of the China printing market and the quality of the printing equipment that is being produced to support it. China Print clearly demonstrates the place that Chinese manufacturers have earned in the global marketplace of products and ideas.

JMD Machinery Co. which is China’s premier manufacturer of bookbinding equipment will use China Print 2013 to unveil its newest addition to its full line of quality equipment. To meet the growing worldwide demand for extremely short run, digital, book manufacturing JMD will be showing its four-clamp Digital Robot perfect binder and trimmer. JMD has been developing this new binder for over two years to meet the exacting requirements of those customers that have adopted the new high-speed digital inkjet presses. One of key markets served by these new inkjet presses is in book manufacturing. As these presses have grown wider and faster their output of books has likewise grown, creating new challenges for the companies that produce the bindery equipment to support them. JMD has met that challenge.

The JMD Digital Robot is designed to go either in-line to the press and the folding equipment or off-line to the press just linking up to the folders. The new Digital Feed mechanism will accept loose sheet book blocks, internally glued books blocks, or folded signatures. The optional signature stacker accepts the folded signature, accumulates them in sequence and delivers a complete book block ready for binding. Some folders produce short stacks of internally glued book blocks, the Robot’s Separator unit de-stacks those small piles and feeds them individually into the perfect binder. Loose sheet book blocks are jogged and squared before binding. The Robot can also be efficiently and safely hand fed from outside the machine without light windows.

All of this happens at a rate of 1500 cycles per hour. That is in excess of the complete output of a 30 inch wide inkjet press printing running at 650 ft/min and making 250 page, 6” X 9” books in a 4-up mode. This is the kind of productivity that today’s digital book printers need to achieve to maximize their ROIs in these new presses.

Each book block is measured directly and the book clamps are adjusted on the fly to provide secure movement through the binder. Because the book block is individually measured changes in substrates are not a problem for the Digital Robot. Book block information can also come directly from the press’ digital front end or from the operator’s touch screen control panel.

As the book blocks are being measured the side gluing rollers and the cover nippers are also adjusted. The result is a perfect bound book that is exactly square and ready for transfer to the Digital Three Knife Trimmer that is an integral part of the system.

To provide maximum flexibility the Digital Robot has roll-in/roll-out gluing tanks that allow for the easy switch from EVA to PUR gluing. The book blocks are always handled by a PUR compatible transport that gently moves the books through the binder without disturbing their freshly glued spines. The result is noticeable even in books bound with traditional EVA adhesives.