• The Rhin-O-Tuff CI 3000 is a uniquely designed spiral coil inserter that is designed for making it easier to insert coils onto the edge of your documents.
• The design of this inserter makes it ideal for use with large sized books and longer documents. These types of books are traditionally the most difficult to insert using a traditional roller style coil inserting machine.
• The CI-3000 has a unique place in the market where it can save certain types of organizations a lot of time. If it is a good fit for you then great. Otherwise you may be better off with a more traditional inserter.

Strengths / Features:

• The Rhin-O-Tuff CI3000 is capable of binding books with spiral coils that are between 6mm and 30mm in diameter. However, the greatest amount of time savings will come when using this machine to insert coils that are larger than 20mm. These coils are more difficult to handle with standard sized inserters and really work well on this type of machine.
• This machine uses a special mandrel system to help guide the coils onto your documents. Depending on the size of your book you will need to select the correct size of coil for your document. This mandrel system makes the CI-3000 ideal for use with 36" long coil. With standard coil inserters using 36" coil is a huge pain. However with this machine it cuts the number of times you have to thread the coil onto the machine by two thirds. This allows you to increase speed and productivity. The CI-3000 includes all of the mandrels that you will need for inserting coils between 6mm-30mm in diameter.
• The CI3000 includes special guides to help you precisely place your book on the machine. These guides make it easy to place your book in the right location for inserting. Once you get the guides set up correctly, they make the inserting process go much faster than it would if you were trying to hold the documents in place.
• The chrome colored chute on the right hand side of this machine helps to guide the coil onto the document and to prevent it from getting tangled during the inserting process. If you hang this portion of the machine over the edge of your table you can simply allow 36" coils to hang off the side of the machine during the inserting process.

Weaknesses / Limitations:

• This style of coil inserter can offer significant time savings over a traditional roller type of coil inserter. However, it is also a lot more difficult to set up and get used to. Almost anyone can use a roller to insert coil onto a document. However, with the CI-3000 you have to make sure that you have the right mandrel, that the book is placed in the right position, that the book guide is set up properly and you need to apply the correct amount of pressure using the rubber roller. This can take some getting used to and really isn't ideal for occasional users.
• The setup time for this type of system is really best used in organizations that need to do long runs of similar sized books. There are a number of steps involved in switching this machine to insert different sized coils. If you have to do this ever few hundred books it shouldn't be a big deal. However, organizations that do short runs of documents or books will find that they spend more time setting this machine up than they do inserting.
• This machine is really best used with 36" spiral coil. The longer coils require less work with the mandrel system and help to increase productivity. However, the supply costs and shipping charges for 36" coil is often higher than would be incurred for standard 12" coil. This is something to keep in mind when evaluating this machine.

Recommendation:

• This spiral coil inserter offers a great option for organizations that need to bind large sized books and long documents. In fact, it is one of the best choices available on the market for these two applications.
• However, organizations that have inexperienced operators, or need to produce short runs may find that this machine is actually slower and more cumbersome to use than a standard roller style inserter.
• Some users swear by this style of machine, other users hate it. My suggestion is that you should only buy this machine if you have tried it and are sure that you are comfortable setting it up and using it.