Recommended press/finishing for playing/trading cards?

[customstickers]

Hello all, I’m looking at bringing the capability to produce playing & trading cards to my shop.

Our current equipment is all roll-to-roll printing and finishing so I’m looking for feedback as I don’t have much experience on sheet printing and finishing.

Anyone have any thoughts or experience in the card niche?

My current thought is:

Printing:
KM 4070

Finishing:
Duplo 200 UV flood coater

Rotary die cutter - Looking at perhaps Rollem or Duplo options


For playing cards my thought was a UV coating but does it make sense to do a UV or laminating?

Does this equipment make sense, any watch outs, or other suggestions for equipment?

I would like to keep the total budget under $150k if possible. I’m also willing to buy used equipment.

Thank you in advance.

 

[Ynot_UK]

Here's an on-topic article from a while back...

 

[SoggyWinter]

Great Western Ink is a US Duplo dealer and they have a fantastic Duplo tech.

 

[criccidisk]

There are several manufacturers of UV coating equipment who offer textured rollers that can mimic the finish of a playing card. I know for sure that Tec offers it, and I believe Duplo and Graphic Whizard also offer it.

One thing I'd encourage thoroughly testing however: I've had nothing but issues UV coating the latest batch of KM engines, and that's speaking as someone who successfully UV coated on KM engines for several years prior to my problems. Tec, Duplo, and GW all had problems ranging from liftoff to outright burning on printed regions of the press sheet independently of the UV formulation used or the brand of printed stock. I'd like to think it's an ongoing issue that's being resolved by someone somewhere, but the silence from manufacturers is deafening.

 

[tngcas]

Tec, Duplo, and GW all had problems ranging from liftoff to outright burning on printed regions of the press sheet independently of the UV formulation used or the brand of printed stock. I'd like to think it's an ongoing issue that's being resolved by someone somewhere, but the silence from manufacturers is deafening.

Make sure you ask questions about the maintenance side of the equation as well on any UV equipment you consider and the cost of consumables and rollers. The previous owner of our shop bought a UV machine not aware that the cleanup time after using the UV machine (GW brande) was around 45 minutes. We didn't have the volume to justify that time and they didn't give us adequate training on how to properly preform the cleaning cycle so rollers got damaged and replacement rollers were upwards of $2k each.

 

[customstickers]

Thank you very much, that's extremely helpful to know about the risks and watchouts for UV coating equipment.

 

[Stickman42]

The previous owner of our shop bought a UV machine not aware that the cleanup time after using the UV machine (GW brande) was around 45 minutes.

I recently replaced my UV coater with a Duplo 200. We went from a very lengthy, messy cleanup routine to (almost) literally just pushing a button. This is what finalized the decision for me.

 

[customstickers]

I recently replaced my UV coater with a Duplo 200. We went from a very lengthy, messy cleanup routine to (almost) literally just pushing a button. This is what finalized the decision for me.

That is great to know. So the Duplo 200 is pretty straightforward for the cleanup and so forth? Have you used it with KM equipment? Or do you use another print engine? Wondering if you've had similar issues to what criccidisk has faced.

Our shop is customstickers.com and we've only ever done lamination, so I don't have experience with UV coating. Really appreciate the thoughts, everyone.

 

[Stickman42]

The Duplo coater is very straightforward to run and maintain. If I had to find a fault, I'd say the user manual is a little lacking. Bear in mind I've run it for only a few months now. The rubber coating applicator roller will need to be changed at some point, and they are about $2K new. Time will tell how many miles we get out of them.

I run only Xerox prints through my coater, and have not had any issues like those mentioned. I do have the dual IR lamps, which I believe were engineered into the machine to accommodate KM and other's output.