Simple, Reliable and Affordable ID Card Printing
More complex levels of id card printing have recently been made available to K-12 schools, membership clubs, loyalty card retail establishments and other small businesses. Just a few years ago, a photo id badge printer system to make basic plastic full color id cards costs thousands of dollars. Technology has increased making the printers capabilities much higher and the price tag much lower.
Photo id systems are now easy to set up and quickly provide full color printed PVC cards. All standard id card printers can provide a black text on a standard CR-80 sized card. The CR-80 card is the same size as your credit card or driver’s license. Most all printers also have the technology level to print full color on a single sided card. The color is provided by the full color print ribbon used in the printer.
Some id card printers are capable of printing single sided cards while options are available with most printer models to add a dual flipper on the printer. This allows the card to be flipped after the front side is completely printed and is then printed on the back in a black prior to card extraction from the printer.
Newer printer models also allow an addition of an encoder module on the printer. The printer is then able to add information into the card to make it work with applications such as door access systems. Contact and contactless smartcards, proximity cards and magnetic stripe cards can also be printed and encoded with this module.
Another feature of the newer models of printers are the optional Ethernet and internal print server options. These options allow card printing from a shared network rather than printing only on a stand alone system as prior models.
The card size used in these printers has been limited to cards that were 30 mil thick. This is a standard size card used for credit cards and driver’s licenses. With new models, cards from nine mil to 40 mil thick can be printed.
These thinner nine mil cards are often used for customer loyalty programs, health care, parking, and membership cards. Cards such as these are often used for short periods of time or are sent in the mail.
Thicker cards in the 40 mil size are normally proximity cards. Now, even these cards can be directly printed on with entry level as well as advanced printers.
Rewritable cards are also becoming popular in various industries. A card used may only be needed for a few days or even hours. A visitor badge is a sample of this type of card. Cards such as these can be erased and rewritten multiple times for reuse. This type of print requires special heat sensitive cards. They pass under the heat of the printer’s printhead can be updated in a matter of seconds. Other uses for this type of card are loyalty cards with updated points, library cards with current due dates or personalized volunteer badges.
The capabilities of photo id card systems are much greater than in past years. Pricing is also more reasonable.
