ID Card Printers – What does a Zebra Printer have?

The ZXP Series 8 is a retransfer ID card printer which uses the process called reverse thermal transfer. In this process, the high resolution image is printed in the reverse onto a receiving special flexible film.

Then using heat and pressure, the image is thermally transferred directly to the surface of the card with the receiving film thermally bonding to the card itself serving as a protective layer to the surface of the card and hence the image. The image produced has photo-like quality with consistent colors and sharp resolution, similar to that produced by comparable models of other brands, but slightly better.

This image retransfer process can be done on a single side or on both sides in a single pass.
Because the printer head does not touch the surface of the card, even those with uneven surface like the HID proximity cards with embedded RFID chips and antenna can be printed on with the same high quality image.

According to OEM specifications, this Zebra printer is ideal for printing company and school IDs and high level security access control cards and for tracking people inside the company premises high security areas. It can also be used to print driver's licenses issued by government; national ID and voter's registration cards; ATM, credit cards and smart cards, either contact like cards with magnetic stripe or contactless cards like HID proximity cards; loyalty cards and club membership cards; and, others.
It prints edge to edge of the card, which makes the card tamper proof. It can also do one-sided and dual-sided lamination of the cards it prints.

Because of its modular design, other options can be added to the capability of the machine like magnetic stripe encoder, smart card and contactless encoder, UHF Gen RFID encoder, and Ethernet and 802.11b/g wireless connectivity. These features afford you with the means to defer expenses by buying only the basic machine with the features that you need at the time of purchase.

Comparable models of other brands have the color printing speed on 1 side (YMCKO): 150 cards/hour; and 2 sides (YMCK0-K): 115 cards/hour. On the other hand, the ZXP Series 8 has the following color printing speeds: Max print speed single-side 190 cards per hour; and max print speed dual-sided 170 cards per hour, making it the fastest in its class, while maintaining the same high resolution image.

With its capabilities, this Zebra printer can be considered one of the best id card printers in its category. It is also very suitable as a component of the access control system.