Slitting Rewinding Machine: A Selection Guide

Slitting is the last gate a roll passes through before it becomes product: whatever the upstream printing and laminating have achieved, the slitting and rewinding machine decides how the finished roll arrives at the customer - width, tightness, edge quality and repeat accuracy. That is why the choice of slitter deserves the same engineering attention as the press itself. Two machines in the XIAOPAI flexible-packaging range answer two different production briefs, and reading them side by side is the fastest way to decide which brief is yours. XIAOPAI - Wenzhou Xiaopai Electric Power Technology Co., Ltd. - supplies both machines as part of a complete line, from film blowing through printing, laminating, slitting and tube cutting, in a supply built on long-established Chinese manufacturers.

TWO MACHINES, TWO PRODUCTION BRIEFS

The CLFQ-W1100 automatic high-speed rewinding and slitting machine is the throughput machine: unwind diameter 1,400 mm, rewind diameter 1,100 mm, slitting width from 30 to 1,100 mm, a mechanical speed of 400 m/min with rewinding at 350 m/min, EPC correction accuracy of 0.30 mm, 23 kW, 4,000 kg - built to handle webs from 30 to 300 gsm. The Type 1300 horizontal slitting machine is the versatile precision machine: slitting width 1,300 mm, mechanical speed 200 m/min with slitting at 150 m/min, photoelectric guiding at a repeat positioning error of ±0.5 mm, magnetic powder tension control on pneumatic shafts, a channel-steel frame with chain drive, and 1,200 kg of straightforward engineering. The first machine is built for long campaigns of film at speed; the second for flexible, precise work across non-woven fabrics, aluminium foil, plastic films and roll paper, with effective cutting widths of 45, 60, 65 and 90 cm for multi-variety production. Neither is a compromise - each is the right answer to a different order book. Both machines are part of a complete line supply that works with long-established Chinese manufacturers - one contact, one specification, one accountable party from unwind to finished roll.

SPEED AND THROUGHPUT

The headline difference is speed, and it is worth reading as an order-book decision rather than a number. At 400 m/min mechanical and 350 m/min rewinding, the CLFQ-W1100 is sized for campaigns: the same structure run for shifts, the output of an upstream blown film or printing stage swallowed without creating a bottleneck. At 200 m/min mechanical and 150 m/min slitting, the Type 1300 matches the pace of continuous batch production - multi-variety work where the changeovers, not the maximum speed, set the daily output. A buyer who knows the campaign length of a typical order already knows which of the two machines the order book is asking for; a buyer who does not should work it out before comparing anything else, because no other specification offsets choosing the wrong throughput class. There is also a line-balance reading of the same numbers: a slitter is sized to swallow the output of everything upstream, so its speed class is chosen against the press and the blown film line it will follow - a fast slitter behind a slow line buys idle hours, and a slow slitter behind a fast line creates a warehouse of unslitted rolls.

TENSION AND GUIDING: THE ACCURACY STORY

The two accuracy figures come from different control philosophies, and both are honest ways to build a machine. The Type 1300 uses magnetic powder tension control on both unwind and rewind, combined with a photoelectric guiding system - a guiding range of 120 mm and a repeat positioning error of ±0.5 mm, which is what keeps edges neat and waste low across non-woven, foil and film webs. The CLFQ-W1100 answers with EPC correction accuracy of 0.30 mm - a tighter figure, matched to the higher line speed where small errors compound over a longer web path. The materials industry treats this distinction seriously: precision slitting is named as its own capability in packaging programmes, not assumed as a by-product of speed. The practical reading for a buyer: match the accuracy figure to the tolerance your downstream customer actually checks, and to the web width and speed you actually run - tighter is not automatically better if the rest of the specification does not need it. Roll tightness and edge quality are what the customer unrolls at the far end of the chain, and both are set here - by the tension profile, the guiding response and the geometry of the rewind - long before any wrapper sees the roll.

MATERIALS AND WIDTHS

The material range completes the picture. The CLFQ-W1100 covers webs from 30 to 300 gsm across a slitting width of 30 to 1,100 mm, with a 1,400 mm unwind taking full-diameter rolls off the upstream process. The Type 1300 is built for the same families of material from a different angle - non-woven fabrics, aluminium foil, plastic films and roll paper - with multiple effective cutting widths of 45, 60, 65 and 90 cm on a 1,300 mm frame, the pneumatic shafts making width changes a handling step rather than a project. This is where the two production briefs separate cleanly: a film converter running wide webs at volume fits the CLFQ-W1100; a converter serving several narrow-web markets from one machine, or cutting heavier non-wovens and foils, fits the Type 1300. The 30 to 300 gsm span on the CLFQ-W1100 is a decade of material weights in one machine, which is what lets a converter accept the mixed orders that keep a line loaded; the Type 1300's material list - non-woven, foil, film, paper - is the multi-market answer to the same question. Upstream, the widths have to match too - the solventless laminating machine runs lamination widths of 1,050, 1,350 and 1,650 mm, and the slitting plan should be drawn from that laminated width backwards, not forwards.

THE CHOICE IN PRACTICE

Four questions settle the choice in practice. What does a typical order weigh and run - a long film campaign or a sequence of shorter, mixed jobs? What material, and at what grammage - film, foil, non-woven or paper? What does the downstream customer measure - edge neatness, width tolerance, roll tightness? And what does the rest of the line feed the slitter - roll diameter and width upstream decide whether the unwind takes the web as it comes or needs a re-plan. Answer those four and the machine selects itself; answer them after the machine arrives and the selection becomes an accommodation. The four questions belong in one sitting, asked together with the specification sheets open: throughput, material, tolerance, upstream supply. Written down together, they turn a machine comparison from a brochure reading into a procurement decision that the production plan can stand on. The industry keeps investing in exactly this decision: new cast-line capacity in Mexico is the same choice made at plant scale - throughput class first, then the rest of the specification.

WHAT XIAOPAI SUPPLIES

Both machines are supplied by XIAOPAI as part of a complete flexible packaging line, working with long-established Chinese manufacturers - and the specification sheets for each, with the figures published above, are available so the selection can start from data. Whichever machine the order book asks for, it lands with the same per-unit documentation and the same single accountable contact that the rest of the line carries - because a slitter chosen well only pays off if the web it receives, and the line behind it, were planned with the same discipline.