The Enduro+ provides professional, fraud proof ID card printing technology, helping to reduce costs and make card printing quick, secure and simple.

Perfect for schools, colleges and medium sized businesses that print up to 10,000 cards per year, the Enduro+ brings upgraded features to Magicard’s best-selling Enduro card printer.

The Enduro+ is affordable and easy to use, giving you the power to take control of ID card production and eliminate the costs and delays associated with outsourcing.

The original Enduro printer was launched in 2008 and is Magicard’s most popular card printing machine, with many tens of thousands installed worldwide.

In developing the Enduro+, Magicard listened to the needs of its customers – schools, colleges, successful SMEs and events organisations around the world to create an upgraded printer that will meet the demands of a fast-changing global business environment. New features include Ethernet network connectivity, increased memory, more encoding options and even better image clarity.

Features which make the Enduro+ outstanding:

●     Ethernet connectivity to enable remote printing from any of your offices

●     Improved colour mapping for better photo clarity and improved accuracy of identification

●     Multiple encoding options

●     Rewrite technology

●     Easily upgradeable from single to double sided printing

●     Secure watermarking with Magicard’s patented HoloKote feature
The Enduro+ is designed to evolve with your organisation: users have the freedom to install upgrades as they go, expanding the printer’s abilities to match growing demands. This makes the Enduro+ an extremely cost effective investment.

“When we redesigned our best-selling printer we listened to what our customers wanted”, explains Andy Matko, Managing Director of Ultra Electronics Card Systems. “You asked for more flexibility, improved connectivity and even better print quality, and I am confident that the Enduro+ delivers on all of these.” He continued: “One of the great things about the Enduro+ is that it evolves with your company’s needs, making it a future-proof solution. It’s also excellent value for money, at the same price as the original Enduro”

HoloKote is a security watermark that is applied using a patented process to every card you print. Faster and more economical than custom lamination, Holokote requires no extra cost to use. Every direct-to-card printer comes with four standard HoloKote designs: UltraSecure key, interlocking rings, globes, and wave. Choosing which design is printed is easy and is done with the driver menu. It can also be changed for each print job.

To enable HoloKote, select “Printer Properties” or “Preferences” on the print menu during card printing. Then navigate to front or back tabs, and select security options. The HoloKote design can then be selected from the drop-down menu.

Opening the driver

Selecting HoloKote

With the Rio Pro printer, you can even elect to install a custom Holokote. This is a special HoloKote that puts your logo or custom design as the watermark on the card. Custom HoloKote comes in two designs: standard and flex. Standard puts your design into a grid pattern across the card; flex stretches your image across the face of the card. When HoloKote flex is installed, simply drop the Custom HoloKote key into your printer and every card will be printed with your custom design. To disable the custom HoloKote, remove your key and store in securely.

When printing cards that are used for identification or secure access, it is essential to design the card to include features that make it easy to identify as authentic. With a Magicard printer, visual security is easy when you use the built-in HoloKote feature.

HoloKote is a security watermark that is applied using a patented process to every card you print. Faster and more economical than custom lamination, Holokote requires no extra cost to use. Every direct-to-card printer comes with four standard HoloKote designs: UltraSecure key, interlocking rings, globes, and wave. Choosing which design is printed is easy and is done with the driver menu. It can also be changed for each print job.

To enable HoloKote, select “Printer Properties” or “Preferences” on the print menu during card printing. Then navigate to front or back tabs, and select security options. The HoloKote design can then be selected from the drop-down menu.

			Selecting Holokote
	Opening the driver

With the Rio Pro printer, you can even elect to install a custom Holokote. This is a special HoloKote that puts your logo or custom design as the watermark on the card. Custom HoloKote comes in two designs: standard and flex. Standard puts your design into a grid pattern across the card; flex stretches your image across the face of the card. When HoloKote flex is installed, simply select HoloKote Flex from the drop down menu in the driver set-up window.

For more information, contact your Magicard sales rep or visit www.ultramagicard.com/security/holokote

I thank you for your commitment to the Magicard difference, and I wish you a successful 2012.

Andy Matko,
Director and General Manager

The profile is available in the newly-released Rio Pro driver – version 1.6.1, which can be downloaded from here. Note that the driver default setting is Gamma 1 – to select the ICC profile you will need to click on the advanced tab and change ‘colour correction’ to ‘colour management (built in to driver)’

1. Start with Quality.

Obtain a quality ID card printer and badging system from your dealer or integrator. Don’t skimp and purchase a cheap off-brand for your project.

Use high quality blank cards. While they may all look the same, there are actually several types of blank PVC cards available. The quality of the blank card directly affects the quality of the finished item and the quantity of waste in time and materials.

Things to check for when purchasing blank cardstock:

• Cards are the correct size (CR80 is the standard credit card size) and thickness (30-40 mm is recommended for long term card use)
• The cards have clean edges, flat surfaces, no surface contamination, and are opaque to light.
• If the cards have electronic components inside (proximity/contact chip), these must not create any unevenness in the card surface.

You may have to obtain several batches of cardstock from different manufacturers before finding cards with the right build and quality to fulfill your project’s needs.

2. Design your card with the end in mind

Simplicity always works best. Include a name, identification number, scannable barcode, picture, and other essential elements but leave out specific identity information that is subject to change such as an address or phone number.

Think about the card’s use. Do not print important information in places where the card will come into contact with readers (such as the area around a magnetic stripe), as the card print in this area may be scratched off with use.

Don’t ignore the printing process when you design your cards. With a dye-sublimation printer, you can achieve a very high-quality product by designing your cards with lighter colors and avoiding large plain-color areas.

No printer can improve bad images and graphics, so it is important to ensure that all photos are properly lit and any graphics are sourced from high-resolution files so they do not pixelate or distort. 

3. Know your printer’s process

There are three main types of card printing: dye-sublimation, reverse-transfer, and offset. Offset printing is done on large machines and cannot be done on-location. Most desktop printers use dye-sublimation while higher end models may use the reverse-transfer printing process.

The biggest difference between dye-sublimation and reverse-transfer is speed and cost. Reverse-transfer does give higher quality cards, but with a good dye-sublimation printer, the difference is often negligible.

As you print, the print head will get progressively hotter; this is compensated for in the printer firmware, but it may affect how some card designs print. 

Dust and debris on the card surface will cause small white blemishes to appear in the image so keeping the cards and tacky rollers clean is imperative. Using gloves to handle and load blank cards is always recommended.

Just like an inkjet printer, colors appearing on the monitor will not always be exactly the same as those that are printed. To get the best looking cards, print some samples, then adjust the gamma and print head power within the printer driver. This may take some trial and error, so allocating time for sample printing and driver adjustment is an essential part of any printing process.

In general, printing quality cards is not difficult. By starting with good materials and keeping the abilities and limitations of your Magicard printer in mind, you will end up with identification cards that work well, last long, and look great.

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After the boom-times fuelled by cheap credit, we saw reality bite, and business uncertainty continues to present times.   The cranes stopped, capital equipment budgets were cut, and inventory was squeezed.  But the Magicard R&D and Marketing investments never wavered. We supported our channel partners and our end users through the hard times.  We kept launching new products.  No radical organisation or route to market changes, no short term deals, just a focus on what really counts.

Our business values are :

• We aim to be approachable and available to discuss business with you.
• We will never sell around our distribution channel partners.
• Our goal is to provide a superior level of support to both channel partners and to end users, in all aspects, before, during and long after a sale is made.

We describe these values to our team through our mission, which is:

“Differentiated Products, Better Support, Working With Our Partners To Develop The Market”.

Every couple of years we test ourselves by means of a customer survey, and many of our partners took the time to respond to our 2011 survey – thank you. I am confident from the results that we are on the right track, but we have taken actions to add some extra people into operations, engineering, quality and customer support roles in order to serve you better.

I and the Ultra Electronics Card Systems team thank you for your business and your continued support of the Magicard difference.

Andy Matko
Director
Ultra Electronics Card Systems

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