The ZC10L, which was previewed at Trustech, Cannes, late last year, became commercially available last month and has already been used by Fox Broadcasting at a Super Bowl VIP event.
It is being badged as Zebra’s first machine that can carry out printing on edge-to-edge cards without the need for preprinting and prints on cards more than double the size of other DTC machines already on the market. Priced at £7,665, Zebra also offers synched supply kits sold exclusively with the ZC10L, which feature 400 PVC cards and ribbon rolls to eliminate waste.
John Tinman, Zebra manager of regional product management AIT and card sales for EMEA, said a number of machines had already been sold, including one to an English Premier League football club. He said he had “high expectations” for the UK market.
It is mainly intended for short runs of personalised cards for corporate events, conferences or sporting events, where it is “important that from a distance you can recognise if somebody is a VIP or from a certain area,” according to Tinman.
He said: “I think what sets it apart is that this is a large card that we use. There are no direct competitors that can do edge-to-edge on the size of card we have. There are others that do this with inkjet but that is another concept of card printing.”
Printing on durable PVC materials, the machine prints single-sided in full-colour or monochrome at maximum 300dpi resolution at maximum speeds of 200 cards per hour in five-colour (CMYK and orange) and 325 cards per hour in mono. It takes cards at maximum thickness of 17mm, sized 140x88mm.
It also features a 400-card capacity feeder and a 100-card capacity hopper and uses a multi-status operator LED display.
“We’ve got a lot of partners that have placed interest in the printer,” added Tinman.
“This printer brings us as a company into a new market segment, which we didn’t really approach with our other card printers, so we are building a channel to market to make sure there is a distribution channel for this product and people can see the benefits.”
Headquartered in Illinois, US, Zebra manufactures a range of other products, including desktop, industrial and kiosk printers, along with mobile computers, RFID machines and barcode scanners.
