As you know, the Fargo HDP5000 was designed to be a cheap and easy means of using retransfer printing technology to create cards that are superior to those printed on standard Direct Card printers using dye sublimation printing. However, "cheap" can also be a result of poor design and planning, not just intentional pricing and market placement. As mentioned on the previous page, there are multiple features where the XID family of retransfer printers has a clear advantage. But features alone are not always the best reasons to choose one piece of hardware over another. There are also durability and flexibility issues that must be considered.

When closely examining the HDP5000, there are several aspects of the printer that clearly reveal that the unit was hastily designed to bring it quickly to market, to face the growing demand for printers that could handle longer lasting card materials, include higher level security features, and effectively print and encode smart cards. Though Fargo may one day produce such a unit, the HDP5000 is not it.

Below is a list of the more serious design flaws that can lead to printing errors, hardware malfunctions, and possible system meltdown:

Unfiltered Fan System
Due most likely to the confinement of space in the overall design of the HDP5000, the original model only had one unfiltered fan inside the printer to cool the retransfer print head. According to Fargo, they have since added a second fan to help reduce heat inside the printer caused by the print head, though their current service manual still only shows one. There are 5 fans inside every XID5xxie printer to circulate the air and cool everything from the print head to the power supply to the mother board; and there are filters on all of them that can be removed, cleaned and replaced as needed. This also allows us to maintain heavy duty batch-mode printing without system interruptions to cool the print head. There are no filters for the either fan unit that Fargo says is inside the HDP5000. Worse still, the only visible cooling fan blows outside dust that is ionically attracted to the printer directly into the print path of the ribbon adding debris to the ribbon before it reaches the print area.

                
                                  An unfiltered fan blows dust and debris directly into print path

Cleaning System Drops Debris Over Print Path
As mentioned before, every XID5xxie has a reusable cleaning roller system, that sits vertically above the card drawer, but below and to the right of the card path and the print head. This means that any debris not captured by the rollers drops back down toward the card drawer, away from the printing path and completely away from the print head. Unfortunately, the HDP5000 is completely the opposite. The card input hopper rests above the card path. The cards are pulled into the printer through cleaning rollers that technically only clean the top side of the card, the side not printed by the printer during single-side usage. Any debris or dust falling off the card or the rollers falls directly onto a plastic wall that Fargo claims will keep it from landing on the ribbon. However, there is no means in place to remove that debris or dust from the printer and debris can still fall down onto the print head.

                
             Gravity is not your friend in this system, as loose debris can fall directly into the print path

Problems Printing and Encoding Single-side Cards
In the XID560ie single-side retransfer printer, it does not matter which side of the card you want to print or encode. Whether using magnetic stripes, contact chips or contactless technologies, you can determine in the printer driver what you want to encode and which side of the card you want to print. Chip side up; mag side up; it doesn't matter. For the HDP5000, it does. Since there is no flipper unit at all inside the printer, whatever side is facing down, is the side that gets printed. Period. If you have a magnetic stripe card and you want to print variable data on the same side of the card, you cannot. Unless of course, you shell out another $2,500 for the attachable flipper for the HDP, and now you have a dual-side printer.

         
The HDP5000 has no internal flipper to control side print selection as shown in the XID560ie driver above

No Bend Remedy Roller
For single-side retransfer printing, it has been known for many years that the intense heat needed for proper adhesion can cause lower quality cards, like PVC, to warp. To counter the "potato chip" effect on such cards, applying an equal amount of heat to the unprinted side is essential to flattening out the card. For this, every XID has a built-in bend remedy roller that can be preset for every type of card material used in the printer, making certain that every printed card exits within ISO standards. In the HDP5000, there is no bend remedy roller, meaning that every printed single-side card is at risk of warping as the heat builds up inside the printer and curling as it exits the printer.

         
    The HDP5000 does not include a bend remedy roller like the XID to flatten single-side printed cards

Plastic Frame and Case
The entire body of the HDP5000 is made of plastic, as is most of its interior components. Only the base frame is metal. This makes the design much more flexible and attractive, and allows for interior components to be snapped into place. However, common sense dictates that this also makes the printer much more vulnerable to damage by external sources, and potential warping due to internal heat buildup, as plastic cannot withstand the same level of abuse and high temperatures that the steel frame and case of an XID can. This is especially true due the limited number of fans inside the HDP5000 to cool it. This may be why Fargo added a second fan, to reduce the risks caused by heat buildup on plastic components. Many of the doors and snaps on the HDP5000 also come loose very easily during usage, due to the poor construction of small interior pieces such as clips and hinges. It's definitely built to be cheap, but not built to last. The construction of the HDP5000 isn't even a close comparison to the rugged reliability and proven track record of the XID 5xxie series.

       
             On the HDP5000, plastic molded pieces are easily damaged under regular daily usage


Contact us today to find out why our end users, integrators and resellers alike say that our EDIsecure^® XID retransfer printers are the best they have ever used. Affordable. Reliable. Flexible. And we can prove it.

Call 1-888-DIS-USA-1, opt 2 or email sales@dis-usa.com.

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Click below to know more about these key EDIsecure^® products and features:  

  • High Resolution UV Printing  
  • K-Panel Security Ribbon Erase  
  • Contact/Contactless Chip Encoding
  • Printer & Print Head Warranties   
  • Custom Inline Lamination
  • Advanced Intelligent Printer Management  
  • Card Management Software  
  • Value Line Direct Card Printers

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© 2008 Digital Identification Solutions LLC     All Rights Reserved.      "EDIsecure" is a registered trademark of Digital Identification Solutions AG.

Digital Identification Solutions
111 Kiowa Lane
Piedmont, SC 29673
sales@dis-usa.com
www.edisecure.com 
1-888-DIS-USA-1

This page last updated on March 09, 2009