Office Equipment Blog from Office Zone

Question:

I was wondering if someone can suggest me a good shredding machine to shred [a] hospital bracelet (kind of rubber or plastic) and I also need to be able to shred carbon printer ink sheets. If you can give me a model and a price it would be appreciate. It’s for a Hospital.

Answer:

We recommend the ScriptStroyer Model UC5500 Pharmacy/Medical Shredder from Martin Yale. It currently sells for $3,758. Today, it is more important than ever to destroy patient and customer information when it must be discarded. The ScriptStroyer shredder helps you stay well within patient privacy regulations mandated by the government such as HIPAA.

Patient bracelets, prescription pill and medicine bottles contain sensitive information. The UC5500 ScriptStroyer will quickly and efficiently destroy these items including bottle caps, labels, and rubber-like plastic material such as a hospital bracelet. Be sure to remove any metallic materials from the bracelet before you run it through the shredder. The ScriptStroyer UC5500 also shreds most types of paper, including carbon paper.

Magnetic encoders, or writers, write data onto credit cards, gift cards, ID cards, and such. The encoder transfers information onto the three tracks of the magnetic stripe on the card. Magnetic stripes are typically located on the back side of a card and are available in high and low coercivity varieties.

High coercivity stripes last longer and are black in appearance. They are designed to store data for a long period of time. Low coercivity stripes are brown in color and are designed to be rewritten multiple times.

Office Zone carries a magnetic encoder machine that also serves as a card reader: The model 3170 Magnetic Stripe Encoder/Reader. The 3170 encodes only low coercivity magnetic stripes, but reads both high and low coercivity cards.

Here’s a holiday shopping tip you may find useful: Office Zone recently announced the availability of some select re-certified bill counting machines. The model ABC 1150 bill counter is now only $147 in the open box/re-certified version.

These are machines that were originally ordered by customers, but returned in unused, like-new condition. These machines are essentially brand new, but we must sell them as used/open box, simply because the product box was opened.

At only $147, you will save an additional $25 off the sale price. And, the bill counting machine is still covered by Office Zone’s standard, 90-day warranty. The ABC 1150’s have been tested by our service technician and are certified to be in optimum working order. Be sure to take a look at our ABC 1150 re-certified bill counters today.

Question:

What exactly is a pouch laminator and what does a lamination pouch look like? What is the purpose of the rolls inside a pouch laminator?

Answer:

Pouch laminators are laminating machines that use heat and internal rollers to laminate a wide variety of documents and paper. Pouch laminators use a pre-sized lamination pouch that is sealed on one side. The inside of the lamination pouch is coated with a heat-activated film that sticks to the product laminated as it runs through the laminator.

Rollers inside the machine help evenly distribute heat to provide a smoother, more professional look. Products laminated on a pouch laminator with only two rollers may take two passes to be properly laminated. Pouch laminators with at least four rollers will laminate a product on the first pass and provide a professional-looking, wave-free lamination. Pouch laminators come in different shapes and sizes. The most common sizes are four-inch and 12-inch wide pouch laminators.

Question:

What are the advantages of using a wire binding machine?

Answer:

Double loop, wire-bound documents lay flat on a table or desk. They don’t close on their own like they do with a common glue-bound book. The pages can wrap around each other for easy reading. You can also create a contemporary, professional-looking presentation with a wire binding machine.

Pages are bound so securely that they do not fall out. Best of all, documents bound with a wire binding machine have an uncluttered, professional appearance. Many of our customers choose wire binding simply because their presentations, reports, proposals, etc. look a lot nicer than pages bound in a different method.

Question:

What are Disengaging Dies and Interchangeable Dies?

Answer:

Disengaging or disengageable dies are found on some binding machine models. This handy feature gives the user complete control over where their paper is punched and where it is not. Most binding machines do not have disengaging dies. Disengaging dies are not to be confused with interchangeable dies. Interchangeable dies can be completely removed from the machine and replaced with a new die size/pattern with a different punching pitch.

Question:

I am looking for an automatic machine that will score up to 11 X 17 sized gloss paper, hopefully with 2 adjustable scoring blades that can do 2 separate scores at once. Something that can be easily adjusted for different scoring positions. I am also looking for another machine that does automatic cutting, all 4 sides at once. May it be one sheet at a time, automatically fed into the machine, like that of a printer, or a stack that is cut many sheets at a time. Preferable the one at a time automatically fed into the machine. Do you have anything like this?

Answer:

The machine that will handle most of your job requirements is the Formax FD 572 cut-sheet cutter. This impressive new model cuts, slits or perforates a wide variety of documents including checks, tickets, notices, labels and more.

When cutting forms, the FD 572 cutter produces crisp, clean edges. This machine automatically pulls paper from the stacker, and its push-button controls enable quick and easy set-up. It produces up to 50 cut forms per minute.

Do you want to save money and create your own business cards in-house? To start, you need desktop publishing software, a computer, paper and a printer. You will then design and print your cards. There are three popular business card templates available. These are eight-up, 10-up and 12-up patterns. These are bundled with your desktop publishing software.

The eight-up business card pattern produces eight cards on a single sheet of paper, the 10-up creates 10, and the 12-up makes 12. One important thing to keep in mind here: The 10-up pattern is more universally compatible with most computer printers. Some printer models are not capable of printing all of the cards in a 12-up pattern.

Next, you will need a business card cutter. Business card cutting machines are the ideal tool to help you create business cards in a short amount of time. Business card cutters, also known as business card slitters, are compact and typically fit on the top of your desk. The model you choose will largely depend on the amount of cards you need to create and the type of paper you use. If you plan to produce only a few hundred cards a month, then a manual hand crank business card cutter such as the Cardmate should suffice.

Most business card cutters use friction to pull in and cut the paper. Glossy paper has the tendency to slip on the rubber friction wheels in the cutter, thus causing a paper jam. It is a good idea to use paper that is less glossy or slick. It’s also a good thing to know that most business card cutter models will accept up to certain paper thicknesses. Be sure the machine you purchase will handle your desired business card stock. And, be sure to take a look at our large business card cutter model selection today.

We just added the new model V-417 burster from Duplo to our Web site. This industrial-strength machine is the ideal answer for offices that frequently burst, or separate, common forms such as checks, invoices, labels, gift certificates and more. So, why would you want a burster? It simply saves you several hours of time and labor separating perforated sheets by hand!

The V-417 burster was specially designed so that cut sheet forms may be fed directly into the machine from a laser printer. The burster will then automatically burst and stack the paper sequentially. The model V-417 operates at speeds of up to 140 bursted sheets per minute. Be sure to take a closer look at the Duplo V-417 burster today.

We have extensively used and tested the MiniPack model MVS 31 vacuum sealer for about two years now. When we first received a brand new machine from the factory, everyone on our office products testing team had the same thought. This vacuum sealer, at first glance, looks almost identical to its older brother the model MVS 45.

Although the MVS 31 is basically a smaller version of the MiniPack MVS 45, it still performs like an industrial-strength machine. It’s designed to vacuum-pack a wide variety of food products and other items in a very short amount of time. The MVS 31 quickly removes oxygen, and other biological or chemical pollutants in the surrounding air.

This tough little vacuum sealer does an excellent job preserving  taste, flavor, color, and nutrition value of all food products for an extended length of time. The model MVS 31 table top chamber vacuum sealer is flexible, easily programmable and relatively inexpensive.

Once a model leaves our warehouse, we rarely hear of any complaints or problems from our customers. Be sure to visit our Web site for more details and technical specifications regarding our vacuum sealer review of the MiniPack MVS 31.