When you are selecting a plastic card printer type for your business or organization, then you have arrived at the right place.
Deciding upon the most suitable plastic card printing machine for your business depends upon your business type and your budget. Overall, plastic card printers are becoming the norm, replacing what used to be standard — paper card laminating machines. Clearly, plastic has advantages. It is more sturdy, more durable and a plastic badge can encode a significantly more diverse type of information than paper.
The principal types of plastic badge printers you can choose from are: Single side card printers, Double side card printers, Rewritable plastic card machines, Magnetic stripe and smart card encoding card machines, and High-volume printers.
Single Side and Double Side Plastic Badge Printers.
The simplest type of plastic badge printer is a single side printer. When you do not need too much information imprinted, a single side will usually be sufficient. Using just a single side makes the printer less expensive as it does not need to have a second print head in place or a mechanism to rotate and reprint the card.
When more information is needed to be put on the card, such as in the case of health insurance cards, double sided plastic card printers are usually used.
Rewritable printers.
To save money and storage of additional blank plastic cards, rewritable printers are used. Rewritable plastic printers use a special type of plastic that is sensitive to heat and will erase the printed text when exposed to a certain temperature.
A typical rewritable card can be rewritten up to 500 times. Rewritable printers enjoy common usage in colleges where students can keep updating their information throughout the years, at ski resorts where a single card can be reused for another skier, or in hotels to extend the person’s stay.
Magnetic and Smart Card Encoding Plastic Badge Printers.
Plastic cards may incorporate magnetic strips, standard smart cards, or the newest touchless smart cards. Magnetic strips are the most widely used and are found on the backs of credit and debit cards. Smart cards are the newest invention which allow both for storage of encoded information, as well as transmission up to a certain distance of the information in its newest incarnation as touchless smart cards.
For instance, when you are using plastic badges as employee ID badges, a magnetic stripe would require magnetic stripe readers at entrances to buildings and rooms to ensure security. With touchless smart cards, swiping of the card is unnecessary anymore as the receiver by the door can sense and decode the information on the touchless smart card you are holding at a certain proximity to the receiver, and permit or deny access based on that information.
Have you decided what type of plastic card would work best for your business needs? You can find more information on different plastic card printers at Plastic Card ID https://plasticcardid.com.
The experienced plastic card professionals at Plastic Card ID have worked with plastic cards for more than 25 years. They carry the Evolis, Fargo and Zebra card printers and are open and eager to assist you in selecting the right plastic card printer for your business.
