Overview
Universal Smart Cards supplies all the brand name printers for post-production printing and card personalisation. These include the following:
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There are two main types of plastic card printers that print directly to card:
1/ Dye-sublimation
This method uses a dye-based ribbon that is partitioned by a number of consecutive colour panels. The panels are grouped in a repeating series of colours - Yellow, Magenta and Cyan (YMC) - along the length of the ribbon. During printing, a printhead containing hundreds of thermal elements heats the dyes on the ribbon, which vaporize and diffuse into the surface of the card. A separate pass is made for each of the three colour panels. By combining the colours and varying the heat used to transfer them, the printer is able to produce up to 16.7 million colours.
2/ Thermal Re-transfer Printing
Thermal re-transfer refers to a method of surface printing where the entire image is first transferred to a plastic transfer ribbon, one colour at a time. The finished image is then re-transferred to the card. This gives more control over the outcome because card surfaces can be unpredictable, varying though from manufacturer to manufacturer. The re-transfer process allows designers to do things previously unattainable with on-demand printing, such as edge to edge printing. The effect is a card to rival one produced by silk-screen or offset methods, yet can be printed on-demand.
When contemplating what card printer to buy consider other options such as:
Do you need dual sided printing?
Do you need edge to edge printing?
Do you need any encoding options?
Do you need the Card Printer to add any lamination to the card or other security features?
As we are a smart card supplier we can also advise on requirements for encoding. For instance very often manufacturers claim to supply contact chip encoding, when in fact they just tell the user when the smart card is in position. As part of this service, all consumables for your printer can be provided.
Whether you need printed employee ID cards, membership cards, identity cards, or loyalty cards, Universal Smart Cards has a card printer suitable for you.
