PVC ID-Card Printing

Ynot_UK

Well-known member
I couldn't find any discussions on this subject, so I'll start one...

We are looking to start printing ID cards for an existing client. Initially a thousand or so cards, then to provide a small amount for new and replacement cards each week.
We've no prior experience with PVC cards, apart from creating designs for bulk cards which come in from China in tens of thousands.
So this will be a new string to the bow.
Anyone else on the forum doing this? Any pointers, good/bad experiences, hardware recommendations, thoughts on Direct to Card vs Retransfer, etc. welcomed.

Musts include:
  • High quality reproduction of head/face photos
  • Accurate colour rendition for photos and logos
  • Edge to Edge printing
  • Ability to design and print as multipage PDFs - generated from InDesign (initial bulk will be a data merge) to a driver (or rip)
  • No requirement to use bundled OEM design software
Although this current project is for single sided cards, we shall likely invest in a duplex solution since the cost differences are minimal and it future proofs.
This project has no security or encoding requirements as essentially it's a name badge card with a photo, although the ability to offer this may open other doors (pardon the pun) in the future.

In terms of budget, there isn't one per se, however if for example a duplex Magicard 300 at £1,000 (or £1,400 with encoding capability) will be more than man enough for our jobs, then we won't look to unnecessarily spend 3x that on a Retransfer printer such as the Evolis Agilia. But if the £3k machine is what we need to invest in to produce consistently accurate, vibrant cards, then so be it.
 
I can’t recommend a specific printer because I never went down the route of printing pvc cards in-house but I did look into it quite a bit and your best bet is to get a ‘retransfer’ printer and not a ‘direct to card’ printer.

The retransfer printers print the design to a film and then apply that film to the card making it better for true edge to edge printing. When we looked the Fargo machines looked quite good at about £2K but you can also get them used for quite a bit less.

The only thing I was never sure about was how ‘accurate’ the colours from a ribbon printer could be, but the Fargo machines are advertised at having good colour accuracy.
 

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