When people get done with work and put their ID badge on the dashboard of their car during the drive home, the effects are compounded. Exposure to fluorescent lighting can take its toll on the badge and it’s even worse when employees are working outdoors. Exposure to environmental factors, such as UV light, can impact a badge when someone wears the badge inĪ visible way during work (both outdoors and indoors). Three challenges facing card printer program administrators include:ġ) Environmental exposure. Some of these challenges are a result of the type of printer ink technology used for ID card programs. Organizations face challenges when managing their identification card (ID) programs that can be costly if they don’t consider the impact to their business. Continue reading to review Entrust Datacard's whitepaper and if you have any questions/comments about the newest technologies please contact us at the bottom of this article. We wouldn't be surprised to see more card printer manufacturers release new models that utilize pigment inks, simply because of the positive benefits outlined in the following whitepaper. From ColorID's own internal testing as well as placing pigment based ink printers into our own customer base initial feedback has been consistently positive and that fading has been reduced or non existent when using a pigment ink for printing and not having to utilize a separate supply, like an overlaminate.

Each manufacturer has their own terminology for it but the end goal is the same which is to prevent the dye sub ink from fading away. Examples of this would be a separate panel in your ribbon or a separate roll of supply for your card printer such as: Overlay, Topcoat, Laminate, Overlaminate, etc, etc. This basically allows the image to be sealed and not easily transferred over to foreign materials.

The industries solution to prevent transfer of images over the years has been to apply a protective layer onto the printed card surface. Another issue is that over time, the compression against other surfaces like soft vinyl or other PVC cards (from being in your wallet) allow the images to easily be transferred to other materials.

The biggest drawback to discuss is that because the colors are infused into the plastic material, over time UV rays will wash the color out.

Card thermal printer fades