tonysharps Posted January 5, 2012 Posted January 5, 2012 We need to refresh our ID card printer. Most vendors are suggesting a Pebble. One has also suggested a Smart. Does anybody use either of the above? How would you rate them in terms of reliability? - We need to produce in the region of 1600 cards a year. 1200 of which is in a 3 day period during enrolment.
andyturpie Posted January 5, 2012 Posted January 5, 2012 Hi Tony, As we outsource our girls gym to the local community, we have a pebble to create their name badges - as far as im aware its ran for quite a few years, however as a non gym member, I don't know the quality output but I would presume it would be good enough for the task you require!
K.C.Leblanc Posted January 5, 2012 Posted January 5, 2012 We've got a Magicard, I would rather nail my eyeliids to a moving train then use it to print 1600 cards.
bladedanny Posted January 5, 2012 Posted January 5, 2012 We've got a Magicard, I would rather nail my eyeliids to a moving train then use it to print 1600 cards. We have a one card at a time magicard which is good but like said it would be a nightmare doing 1600 cards on it. They do however do printers where you stack a pile of cards in and off it goes.
K.C.Leblanc Posted January 5, 2012 Posted January 5, 2012 We have a one card at a time magicard which is good but like said it would be a nightmare doing 1600 cards on it. They do however do printers where you stack a pile of cards in and off it goes. Ours is meant to do the latter, but after printing a couple of hundred cards it does the former.
Paid_Peanuts Posted January 5, 2012 Posted January 5, 2012 We also have a magicard and would not buy another if it were to break (fall of a desk, by accident....).
localzuk Posted January 5, 2012 Posted January 5, 2012 My old school has a Magicard machine - terrible little thing. This one has a couple of Javelin machines and from what I've been told they've been in place for 3 years and they've been flawless.
bladedanny Posted January 5, 2012 Posted January 5, 2012 Strange, I've not had any problems with ours. I suppose ours gets very little use. Had it about a year and probably only done about 120 cards.
tonysharps Posted January 5, 2012 Author Posted January 5, 2012 We had a Magicard until it died a death, I wouldn't have another. Very highly strung piece of kit.
Admiral208 Posted January 5, 2012 Posted January 5, 2012 Weve got a pebble here and it does a great job. We print badges for all our staff and visitors and it hasnt put a foot wrong in the past 18 months.
CyberDrac Posted January 5, 2012 Posted January 5, 2012 Our Pebble seems to be holding up well ... only done 500 - 600 in a relatively short period of time, but it has only jammed once and only snapped two ribbons, both probably our fault rather than the machine
JaTayler Posted January 5, 2012 Posted January 5, 2012 We have a Evolis Pebble which has been in for about 18 months - 2 years. We certainly haven't completed as many cards as 1600 but done a lot of them and *touch wood* it hasn't broken yet. Digital-ID was the website that we got it from I believe (or at least where we are buying our peripherals for it from). I recommend them - really good service and quite cheap...
Sylv3r Posted January 5, 2012 Posted January 5, 2012 No issues with our magic card printer. 300+ staff ID cards done and probably 400 - 500 sixth form cards done without any issues.
m25man Posted January 5, 2012 Posted January 5, 2012 We use Zebra card printers they seem pretty reliable but slooooooowwwww. 1600 cards I think it would cost a fortune in coffee to keep me awake.
Guest Guest Posted January 5, 2012 Posted January 5, 2012 Got the pebble. Does a good job once you get past the softwares quirks. It doesn't like high res photos which result in lines across the card - took ages to figure that one out. The software is also a bit clumsy in how you define the "mail merge" areas, and highlighting a person to be printed and clicking print doesn't print that person, it prints the person with a tick in the ticky box. No deal breakers but all of the above have resulted in dozens of wasted cards. Alignment and margins are not 100% consistent either.
MatthewL Posted January 5, 2012 Posted January 5, 2012 We use Datacard ones, ours are provided by central goverment type place as we use ours to print smartcards for access to clinical systems as well as ID cards. They make a racket and do play up for us but its our system not the printer. They are good at what they do, not sure on costs etc as ours is an old machine, probably some 10+ years old, have 5 of them sat in the office that we swap around when one plays up!
dobsonl Posted January 5, 2012 Posted January 5, 2012 Digital-ID was the website that we got it from I believe (or at least where we are buying our peripherals for it from). I recommend them - really good service and quite cheap... Another vote for DigitalID from us here - We got a CIM Sunlight K3, probably printed 500+ cards in the past 2 years, worth every penny and any problems simple ring DigitalID and they sort them straight out
rad Posted January 6, 2012 Posted January 6, 2012 We have a Javelin card printer. It works no problem. Each new year it has to do about 550 cards, not all at one time but dont really have any issues with it.
fs171 Posted January 6, 2012 Posted January 6, 2012 We upgraded in the summer to a Zebra ZXP series 3 and it has been perfect, it links to the SQL database too so pulls all information from that for the staff and sixth form.
JaTayler Posted January 6, 2012 Posted January 6, 2012 Another vote for DigitalID from us here - We got a CIM Sunlight K3, probably printed 500+ cards in the past 2 years, worth every penny and any problems simple ring DigitalID and they sort them straight out The rep that I have spoken to at DigitalID even sent me a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year e-mail! Now that's what I call Customer Service!
Simcfc73 Posted March 22, 2012 Posted March 22, 2012 The rep that I have spoken to at DigitalID even sent me a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year e-mail! Now that's what I call Customer Service! I went with DigitalID after the recommendations on here. Delivery was excellent but their after service is doing my head in... and they have a premium rate number for support at £1.50 a minute. I think its a common issue nowadays... if someone tells you thy will ring you back expect to have to chase them 4 times to get anywhere.
TronXP Posted March 22, 2012 Posted March 22, 2012 We use a javelin printer, had it for 3 years now and its been pretty good, most problems have been with the rubbish software we have.
RageRiot Posted March 23, 2012 Posted March 23, 2012 we have a evolis tattoo2, I thinks it's crap but I've never used a card printer before this. The contrast of colors are a bit off and despite cleaning I always seem to get a hair or bit of grit stuck under the last protecting layer. sure I'd blast it with air if I had a compressor because air in a can didnt cut it. it helped but I think it just needs a better clean which they dont pay me for. the software, Emedia card designer is again CRap. like somthing made for windows 98. and if I wanted to install it to another machine I have to perform migration which involes faffing around with keys and wizards, put a foot wrong here and apaprently the licence is lost forever. Any company/developer that has a software licence policy which cuts them out of the equation is a joke beyond beleif in my opinion. I recently redesigned our staff ID cards because who ever did them last did a naff job at it. partly due to the fact that e media card deigner doesnt accept images with transparency but he could have been creative like I have. I incorperated my design into a single image which shows the school logo and LA logo(without no white background) clearly, it's been a welcomed resigned
tonysharps Posted March 23, 2012 Author Posted March 23, 2012 We went with a Smart ID Printer. Smart ID Card Printer | Digital ID I am extremely impressed by it. The colours are very good, print time is reasonable, it's a bit noisy but where it is that's not really a concern for me. The only gotcha for us was that the magstripe encoder built into our ID card software is incompatible with the printer (too new) so we have to encode it using a specially formatted field on the card that the printer can pick up on. We bought it from Digital ID, service was excellent, their support in resolving the magstripe issue was really good.
DigiID Posted March 7, 2014 Posted March 7, 2014 I went with DigitalID after the recommendations on here. Delivery was excellent but their after service is doing my head in... and they have a premium rate number for support at £1.50 a minute. I think its a common issue nowadays... if someone tells you thy will ring you back expect to have to chase them 4 times to get anywhere. I hope this reply finds you well. Apologies it has taken a while to get back to you, and as we have recently discovered your comments above, I just wanted to apologise for any poor customer service experienced. If you could let us know what the previous issues were, I can contact you to discuss. Please send to [email protected] Regards, Jordan
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