Plastic cards are printed using many different processes. Listed below are some of the major processes and the benefits of each.
Pouch printed cards- A pouch printed card can be printed on any material and on just about any printer. In this process, the copy is printed smaller than the finished size and then inserted into a pouch that is 2 1/8″ x 3 3/8″. The pouch is inserted into a small laminator that heats the pouch and encapsulate the printed copy on the front, back and on all 4 edges. By edge sealing the lamination to itself, moisture is prevented from entering so any material can be used as the core stock. This is a very good method for producing a low volume of cards but is slow and requires the purchase of a laminator and pouches. You can go to an outside source and pay to have the copy laminated.
Real Card- A real card is a product that can be constructed using paper for printing the copy and polyester for making the card. The polyester is coated with a material to accept either inkjet or laser printing process. This product comes in a 8 1/2″ x 11″ sheet and can be printed in a inkjet or laser printer. The polyester portion of the forms makes a very good short term card because it is much more durable that paper. Major application for this product is Insurance cards, Membership cards and Season passes. Depending on your application, you can order the card and carrier as a totally blank set and print everything yourself on your printer or have the card and carrier preprinted and just add the variable data. You can also have the complete sheet made of polyester with die cut cards if you only need cards and no instructions.
PVC Surface printed cards without lamination- In this process, a sheet of PVC is printed front and back on an offset press and then die cut to final size. The PVC material is extremely durable and UV coating can be added to give the appearance of lamination without the cost. These cards can have a magnetic stripe added to make a very economical gift card. The drawback to this product is the only protection the copy has is the durability of the UV ink and the UV coating.
PVC cards with lamination. In this process, a sheet of PVC is printed and lamination is added to the front and back to protect the printing. The sheets are then die cut down to final card sizes. The most common application for a PVC is a credit card where a magnetic stripe is used for the customers information. This application works great for magnetic stripe but not for barcodes because the barcode is printed on the surface of the lamination and has no protection.
PVC cards with lamination that is surface printed. One of the most popular ways to make a personalized card is to take a PVC card that has been laminated and cut down to final size. These cards can be have a white core or a color core stock and printed in a card printer. This is a very popular way to build a card from scratch or just add additional information to an existing preprinted card. The only drawbacks to surface printed cards are the printing is on the surface, not under the lamination and the cost of printing can be high.
Composite Cards– A composite card is a card where a synthetic material is used for the core stock that is flexible and can be printed front and back with the copy and barcode. Once the core stock is printed, it is laminated front and back to protect both the printing and the barcode. The big advantage to composite cards is all the printing and barcode is under the lamination. The barcode can NOT wear off since it is under the lamination. This is the big difference between a composite card and a PVC card. The drawbacks to a composite card is not all manufactures use Teslin which bonds up to 10 times stronger that other synthetics. In order to lower the cost of a card, a less costly synthetic is used but the life of a card is drastically reduced. The reason a synthetic core is used instead of paper is synthetic will not absorb moisture and split open like paper, this is important because cards today do not have an edge seal like a pouch printed card.
Teslin Composite Cards- Composite cards constructed of Teslin are manufactured exactly as a composite card on any synthetic core. Teslin bonds to the lamination up to 10 times stronger than other synthetics, making the card or key tags last much longer. Teslin cards are put in a class by themselves because of the physical and chemical bond that takes place with the lamination that you do not get with other synthetic materials.
