Buying Guide to ID Card Printers | How to choose Identification card Printers

How to choose ID card Printers

We do hear a lot of questions regarding choosing ID card printers. Below you can get some ideas on how to choose identification card printers and know about the types of ID card printers, technology, etc.

Do you need full-colored, monochrome or rewritable card printers?

There are a many types of ID card Printers that you can use to the fullest. Full-colored card printers are used to print cards with different color combination. It uses YMCKT color combination (Y-yellow, M-magenta, C-cyan, and B-black). It comes with both ribbon as well as inkjet printers. These printers are ideal for producing students ID card, Staff ID, etc. This printer can suit the needs of small organizations and schools. Full-colored card printer can produce eye catching and realistic photo quality ID cards. These types of printers take normally 5 Seconds to print a card.

Monochrome printer makes use of any single color with multi-shades to print a card. This printer is best suited for bar code, ID cards with single color and multi-shade, band or stripe printing. It comes with the capacity to print fast comparing to full-color printer.

ID cards that can be erased and reprinted using Rewritable printer could reduce cost, time and waste of reissuance. It uses a special heating technology that erases and reprints the card. No ribbons or cartridges are required as it needs only a rewriteable identification card. Each card can be reused up to 500 times. Quick data update can be done with this card printer. This printer is ideal for magnetic stripe and contactless applications.

Magnetic stripes are used in short or special events that are validated only for few days. Contactless cards are generally plastic cards integrated with a small chip. The chip uses an induction technology that can make contact with the card reader for data process. This small chip is used to send and receive data from the card reader that can also be used to store data. RFID (Radio frequency Identification) is used for data transmission. This Contactless Smart cards are ideal for health care, effective business transactions, digital television streams, computer security, financial, identification, etc. The wireless transmission takes place up to very small inches.

Are you looking for Single-sided or Dual-sided ID card printer?

If you need an ID card printer that prints the card only on one side, then you can choose single-sided printer. This printer is ideal for staff IDs, education, healthcare and finds itself in a gamut of print applications. Within this printer you may print identification cards on both sides. But you also have to work on the other side of the cards as you have to print on one side first, and then have to reinsert the card to print on the other side. This may cause alignment errors. Using this printer, the initial cost of the printing can be reduced in comparison with the double-sided identification card printers.

If you need an identification card printed on both the sides, then go for a double-sided printer. When we insert a card into the printer, it could print on both the sides at a time. Printing speed may differ by the printer’s configuration. If you require printing full-color double side printed ID cards, use full-color ink cartridges or ribbons. Similarly for monochrome, you can use single color cartridges or ink ribbons.

Do you need secure ID card printer?

There are some printers available in the market mainly designed for producing secure ID card solutions. You can find a wide range of Security ID Card Printers including Dye sublimation, Holographic lamination, Bar code, ID card with data processing chips, Thermal and Ultraviolet printing. Dye sublimation printer ribbon is divided into three separated group of panels. When heat is applied to the ribbon by thermal print head the colors in the panels vaporizes and sprays a lot of colors into the ID card with print that brings you amazing picture quality. There are many possibilities for ID cards getting damaged like color fade, scratch, etc. To prevent this, you can make use of hologram lamination identification card printing. The lamination printer uses vinyl along with the ribbon. We can change the thickness of the lamination. After the Identification card is printed some heat is passed to the vinyl and it overlays the ID card. ID card without lamination will last for only a year. But laminated identification card could generally last for about 4 to 5 years.

Instead of color cartridges or ribbon Ultraviolet ID card printer makes use of UV ink to print identification card that is visible only to ultra violet lights. These ID cards produced from Ultraviolet ID card printer are ideal for banking and health care.

Resin thermal transfer printing is resin-based. This printer holds one color in the ribbon when it hits into identification card surface resulting in sharp and quality image. This printer is mainly used for bar code or single-color printing. Bar codes are nothing but combinations of light and dark lines. The reader encodes characters according to these light and dark codes. It could also prints separate identity codes.

ID badges are another type of cards that are printed using a specialty ink jet printer. Normally a separate film is used to print the security bar codes and then it is pasted along with the card. But using this special ink filled ribbon, you can print simultaneously.

ID cards with embedded electronic circuits

Some organization may use electronic chips embedded within the identification card. These chips are used for data transaction. Normally first the ID card is printed, and then the small chip is placed with the card by some other printer. Datacard printers are mainly used for this type of card printing. It comes with the capability to print on both identification card and small chip.

Wireless ID card printers

Printers can come with both wired and wireless connections. Wireless connection is rapidly used because in wireless connection, the signal is interrupted and is considered a major drawback of this type of printer.

ID card printer accessories

Printer cleaning kit including special types of alcohol is used to clean cards, sleeves, print head, etc. Printer heads is an essential part that has to be handled quite carefully for dust free operation. We should not fold or stretch the connecting cable when the printer is not used. Printer dust cover, can be used to cover the printer when not in use

Types of ID card printers

You can a wide range of ID card printer available in today’s market including Standard and Enterprise ID card printers. Standard printers are ideal for producing students, staffs, and Employee ID cards. Enterprise ID card printers can cater to the need of production of credit, debit, smartcards etc.

ID Software

A separate software CD will be offered to all the printers as you buy a printer. This software makes connection and data processing between the computer and the identity card printer. Before using it, read the guidelines thoroughly and follow the instructions mentioned as such. The software installation is similar to any other normal software we use every day and the installation quite simple.

Different techniques used in ID card printing

There are four different techniques used for ID card printing namely Direct card print, Ink-jet, dye sublimation, Reverse-image, Personalized ID printing. In Direct card printing, the print process takes place directly on the card by producing heat to the ribbon that results in the transformation of ink from the print head to the card. In Dye sublimation, the entire ribbon is made up with the three panels each containing three different colors like yellow, magenta, and cyan. These three color combination make up ID card printing. It also contains 1 black and clear panel. Black panel is used for printing text and bar codes. Clear panel is used to make laminates over the colors. An ink-jet printer has been used around a long time and contains separate color panels, each one filled with different colors. It contains more than 300 nozzles that spray the colors to the ID card. Reverse image printing is simply printing mirror images.

YMCK and UvKO printers

YMCK and UvKO are nothing but color combinations used in printing ribbon. YMC stands for Y-yellow, M-magenta and C-cyan. The combinations of these three colors produce all other colors. K stands for black color and is used for printing text and bar codes. Uv stands for ultraviolet and this is a special type of ribbon used rarely to print ID cards and is visible only to ultra violet light. O stands for overcoat used to protect panel.

Popular ID card Printers

Some of the popular ID card printer brands include CIM K10, Datacard SP25 Plus Printer, Datacard SP75 Plus Printer, Datacard SP35 Plus Printer, Datacard SP55 Plus Two-Sided Printer, Nisca PR5300 Printer, Nisca PR5302 Laminator, Nisca PR5310 Printer, et al.

Printer ribbons

Some of the popular Printer ribbons include Color printer ribbons, Monochrome, Specialty, Polaroid, CIM and Generic printer ribbons.

Summary: General & Technical Specification of ID card Printers

General Specifications
Factor	Details
Application	Students ID, Employee ID, Staffs ID, Government ID etc
Cost	Vary with printer configuration
Operation & Maintenance	Easy Operation & Maintenance
Simplicity & Portability	User friendly & Compatible
Durability	Normally up to 4 or 5 years
Image Quality	Can vary up to printer configuration
Security	Bar codes, ultraviolet ink, and lamination
Types	Standard and Enterprise ID card printers
Additional Features	Wired and Wireless connectivity
Popular Brand	Datacard, Nisca, Evolis, et al
Common Technical Specifications
Color combination	YMCK and UvKO
Printing type	Single-sided, Dual-sided and Lamination
Ribbons	Monochrome, full-color and Ultraviolet, Resin Thermal, Specialty, Polaroid, CIM, and Generic.
Printing Techniques	Direct card, Ink-jet, Dye sublimation, Reverse-image and Personalized Printing
Accepted Card Types	PVC cards, polyester cards (polished PVC finish), optical memory cards with PVC finish and monochrome resin needed for 100% polyester cards
Accessories	Print head, connection cables and cleaner Kits
Software	Depends upon the Brand and Type
Print speed	Maximum of 5 seconds
Card Cleaning	Available on models
Software Drivers	Windows® 2000 / XP / Server 2003; Linux
Supply Voltage	100-240 VAC, 3.3 A
Warranty	Depends upon the Type and Brand
Encoding Options	Available on particular models
Magnetic Stripe Encoding Module	Available on particular models
Smart Card Encoding Module	Available on particular models
Printer cleaning kit	Available on particular models
Ethernet networking with internal print server	Available on particular models

Bibliography (for further reading)