Editor’s note: Newspapers & Technology, in conjunction with Perfect Pallets Inc., each month publishes a question-and-answer column aimed at postproduction issues. Topics and associated responses originate from Perfect Pallets Post Press Users Group, a free online user group forum. Membership information and other details about this postpress community, sponsored and managed by Perfect Pallets, can be found at www.perfectpalletspostpress.com.

Topic: Double and miss light problem

? We have a (Muller Martini) SLS-1000. On a programmed run, if a double occurs, all the double indicators after that one will indicate as well, regardless of whether there is a double. The same thing also occurs with misses, but not as often. It’s a very intermittent problem. The machine has been in operation since 1991. Any ideas?

Reply: While we have not had an identical problem, we have seen similar: Random misses or doubles, sometimes on hoppers that were not in the running zone. We are running DOS Lincs on an SLS-1000. I believe that most of the following would apply to the Windows version of Lincs.

In no particular order, I would check:

•The MUX cable for intermittent breaks.

 •The OPTO 22 board in the control cabinet. You could swap the doubles  board with the misses board and see if the problem follows.

•Your Lincs software could be corrupted.

•Bad hard drive.

•A problem with the encoder or the lug counter.

I have found all of these problems at some point or another, and all cause random errors as described.

If you are running the old PMS system, the same ideas apply, only the hardware is different.

And one more, slightly oddball thing to check: If MIRS is enabled (in Lincs) on a machine that does not have MIRS, things get very crazy.

Topic: Postal service

? Each day our mailroom mails a morning and afternoon edition to customers — most in our county but some out of county and out of state.

We’re experiencing a lot of frustration, trouble in understanding the Postal Service office and its requirements for mailing the papers. I’m curious how other newspapers handle the mail and who is responsible for the paperwork involved. Also, who measures the paper’s advertising/editorial percentage? Is there software that can do this?

Reply: Our mail list is ran through BCC software. BCC produces a dummy postal statement and a real qualification report that we take to the Post Office with the mail. Then later in the day, our finance department will measure the ad ratio and produce an official postal statement, which is taken to the Post Office the same day.

Follow-up: Our circulation department completes the postal statements, including the ad ratio.

Follow-up: We use PostalSoft. The business office measures the paper to give us the ad ratio and we plug that information into the software. On some of our products we will generate the qualification report to send with the mailing and when we get the advertising percentage we will include that to produce the required form. This is really good software; we even have it interfaced with our stacker or the stitcher to kick postal bundles of the product to reduce hand sorting.

Topic: Inserting CDs

? Is anyone inserting CDs, and if so, how effective has it been? Any tips?  What are the absolute musts if inserting a CD?

Reply: We have run CDs on our (Goss) 632 machines. One of the problems we have encountered is they are not wide enough to run through the miss detector and the double detector. We adjust the strippers to put both of them on one side of the hopper (the inside) and run them over the miss detector. The only other problem we have is keeping the hopper full. We assign two people to the machine to keep the output at about 16,000 per hour.

Follow-up: Our only requirement is that the CDs have a piece of cardboard around them to keep the CD about an inch back from the leading edge. That reduces the damage. We’ve also run them successfully on our (Muller Martini) SLS machines when they’ve been placed inside of a shrink-wrapped plastic wrap that’s around the CD and a piece of cardboard.

Follow-up: We’ve run CDs through our (Muller Martini) SLS-2000 as long as they have cardboard around the CD and there is a small lip (approximately 1 inch) for the fingers to grab onto. We always request samples from our customers prior to committing to run a CD.

Topic: Single sheets inserts

?For those of you who have  (Goss) 632 hoppers, have you figured out a way to run single-sheet inserts into a jacket without them curling up inside the jacket? On a regular hopper, banding solved this problem but with the 632 it is a solid drum and thus does not allow a band to work.

Reply: When we have encountered problems like this, we have set up air jigs and pointed them right down into the pocket as the insert is running. Before we had the 632s we had the 1472s. A trick we used with the 1472s was to lengthen the strap or band. Both tricks seem to make the piece more controllable and rigid as it fell into the pocket.