How plastic cards are made
Every year, the number of people using plastic cards increases everywhere. A plastic card is not just a little piece of plastic to make payment today, they can be used as gift cards, membership cards, hotel key cards and more.
In which way do plastic cards get made?
Numerous ultra-thin white PVC layers and two high-gloss laminates get used to create plastic card blanks. A typical card is 86 × 54 centimeters in size, 0.76 mm thick, and has rounded corners. Plastic cards in 0.1 mm, 0.3 mm, and 0.5 mm widths are available. If you have a suitable card printer, you may process the cards.
A card's composition
Overlay Film
Variable data, such as names, photographs, barcodes, and security features, get protected by transparent film against fading, manipulation, and card duplication.
Core
The card's plastic core gets printed with text and pictures. Plastic sheets get produced using a full-color printing method on a massive digital offset machine.
Inlay that has been pre-laminated
NFC, RFID, and multi-chip inlays are just a few options. 125 kHz, 13.56 MHZ, or 860-960 MHZ are the frequencies used.
Material
Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) is a typical plastic resin used for the core (PVC). This resin gets mixed with opacifying agents, pigments, and plasticizers to provide the desired appearance and consistency.
Overlay Film
A high-quality transparent coating protects cards from scratches, humidity, and chemical exposure. It maintains the aesthetic look of artwork by preventing fading.
What is the process?
A card consists of numerous layers of plastic that have laminated together. A plastic compound called polyvinyl chloride acetate gets usually used for the core (PVCA). This resin gets blended with opacifying agents, colors, and plasticizers to get the right look and consistency. Thin layers of PVCA or transparent plastic components are laminated to the core material. When pressure and heat are applied, these laminates will cling to the core.
Multiple steps make up the manufacturing process:
The plastic core and laminate materials get mixed and molded into sheets, after which the base gets printed with the relevant information.
The finished sheet gets sliced into individual cards once the laminates get applied to the foundation.
The printing process for plastic card
The two most common plastic cards printing techniques are offset print with lamination and offset-print with varnish alone. Plastic card manufacturers can request the use of the CMYK euro scale or custom colors, more info can be found
HERE
. For plastic cards, offset printing gets employed, which gets combined with a protective laminate, allowing them to keep their vibrant colors and shape. Offset printing refers to high-resolution printing using a CMYK color scheme. Re-transfer-processing or thermal printing creates the print on the surface.
The cards get personalized at a later stage of the process. Personalizations can get printed using several printing technologies:
- Printing using a thermal printer
- Printing using dye sublimation
- Printing via retransfer
- Inkjet
- DoD
- Personalization by laser.
Personalization is possible with digital printing and gets protected by lamination.
Plastic cards have been a important part of business today. Knowing how plastic card manufacturer produce and print your cards can help you designing more appealing card design, and save you more time to discuss with the card manufacturer. If you still have any question about plastic card printing please contact our team, we are more than pleased to help with.
