plastic card printer
Plastic card printers operate as thermal transfer or dye sublimation printers. They can be used to print plastic cards in one or more colors and apply a protective coating. The main components of a plastic card printer are the print head, the ribbon and the transport unit for the plastic cards.
In the sublimation process, the ink particles are released from a special carrier film, the ink ribbon, and brought into a gaseous state by the action of heat. During printing, the plastic cards are fed under the ink ribbon. The print head presses the ribbon onto the plastic cards and heats it at this point. During heating, the ink is transferred from the ribbon to the plastic card. A print head consists of several hundred adjacent lamellas, each of which is heated separately. The printing resolution reaches 300 dots per inch( dpi).
The ribbon of plastic card printers consists of individual color areas, which are arranged sequentially, in the order in which they are printed. On the ribbon, each individual color sequence is the size of the plastic card. The color sequence frequently used in plastic card printing is yellow (Y), magenta (M), cyan (C), deep (K) and overcoat (O). The ribbon is derived from this color sequence: YMCKO. There are also color ribbons that deviate from this order, and also monochrome ones in different colors as well as gold or silver. As in four-color printing, the individual printing dots are arranged next to each other: First the yellow, then the magenta and cyan, and as the last color the depth, which is black. The protective layer is printed over the color print as the last printing pass.
The ribbon and the plastic card are fed by two transport units. The ribbon is fed after each color is printed and is controlled and monitored by sensors. The plastic card to be printed is fed and returned whenever a new color is printed.