Evolis Pebble 3 Card Printer

MDLarson

MDLarson

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We are embarking on a new venture (see this thread for 'official' project details), and a small part of that is to print up ID cards, gift cards and the like.

We purchased an Evolis "PEB3LE" card printer for this task because it was the only Mac compatible printer on the market. Fargo, a big name in card printers, used to make a Mac-compatible card printer, but no longer. Why? The reason cited by the local salesperson was that there were simply too many problems with the Mac systems.

The Evolis rep came in today to help out with installation. He had previously emailed me the Mac driver, as the install CDs only contained Windows drivers. This printer is mostly advertised as being compatible with Mac OS 10.2, but 10.3 compatibility (which I'm running) has been guaranteed.

The Evolis installer is not very good. The installer instructions (PDF format) are in English, but screenshots and terms have many French terms. You will see the term repertoire instead of folder or directory, for instance. The screenshots in the PDF are all very blurry as well. Quite a stark contrast to the clean and professional-looking printed manual and other PDF manuals.

The actual installer appears to be mostly straight-forward. Opening the "EvolisCardPrinter.pkg" file launches the installer (no uninstall process, btw) and installs the print driver. A restart is required.

The instructions in the PDF installation guide say:
Before restarting your Mac, connect the New Pebble printer via the USB port and start it. A port called “Pebble” will automatically be created by the Mac OSX.
Click to expand...
This did not happen for me. I wonder if the first time I failed to turn on the printer before a restart or missed something later, but repeated attempts at installing the driver software have not worked. Clicking on Add in Printer Setup Utility / USB menu displays "Pebble" and "Driver not installed".

There is also a utility that allows for firmware upgrades, sending commands to the printer and other functions. This utility can connect to the printer and identify it.

I suspect that if I were running 10.2 I would have less problems. I was able to install the software in Virtual PC and print a card using Evolis' eMedia Card Designer software, but my ultimate goal is to get the Mac OS X driver up and running so I can import picture into a FileMaker database (using InsideScan and an iSight camera), then previewing the card and printing it out with the click of a button.

I will update this review as I hopefully get things working!
 
Despite my rep's promise to get somebody in touch with me and get things working, I decided to attempt to download the software from the Evolis website. They require that you register (including entering the serial number of the printer), which I did. After they emailed me the login information, I logged in to their download page and downloaded... the Windows drivers.

So, I must wait until one of the two Mac techs at Evolis call me today...
 
So I was in the middle of composing a 'reminder' email today and one of the Mac techs called me. A day late, but I'm happy anyway. It turns out I needed to hold the Option button down when I add the printer. The installation guide actually said this, but they used the term "Alt" and I had sort of glanced over it. So, when I thought I needed more up-to-date software to run with 10.3, it was really me just not paying close enough attention. That, and the local rep didn't know much about the Mac install so he couldn't really help me out.

Once the driver is installed and setup correctly, printing a card is straight-forward. It's actually pretty neat to see the printer actually print the card. It's almost like it's sticking its toungue out at you and pulling it back in only to stick it out again with more color on it the next time. It prints YMCKO where "O" is the final pass, the UV protective layer.

This is the card design I'm working on. An almost unavoidable problem I don't really like is a faint white border where the ribbon does not cover. Absolutely perfect edge-to-edge cards might not be very feasible. Also, the resulting colors look slightly less brilliant and more muddy than they do on screen. I might be able to do something about this, but it will be a trial-and-error process.

***

So, I'm up and running. I'm still a little miffed that the Mac drivers were not included on the CD-ROM, nor on the downloads page at the Evolis website. I told the Evolis tech guy this, and he basically said that since the software was 'free' with the printer, they could not distribute it on CD-ROM nor website download without submitting it to Apple for some type of approval process. This sounded bizarre to me, but I didn't feel like arguing too much about it.

I may continue to post my impressions as I go along. The printer itself appears to be a very promising asset for us. If you happen to be a potential customer of Stone Mountain Pet Lodge (located in Blaine, MN USA), feel free to register your pet and we'll give you a free Pet ID, printed on the card printer.
 
MDLarson said:
An almost unavoidable problem I don't really like is a faint white border where the ribbon does not cover. Absolutely perfect edge-to-edge cards might not be very feasible.
Click to expand...
I ended up redesigning the cards to include a white border. I am reasonably pleased with the result, but a true full bleed would have been best.
 
Three people who have found this thread on the web have contacted me directly asking for the Mac drivers. Apparently their suppliers are failing to provide them with full Mac support (even though the printer is advertised as being Mac compatible Link 1 Link 2).

If you find yourself in this predicament, I recommend doing the following:
A) Complain to your supplier and/or Evolis directly
B) Send me a PM and ask me to email you the Mac drivers directly if you can't get it from your supplier or Evolis.

As of 5-3-2006, the Mac driver does not show up on the Evolis driver download page.
 
Hooray!
I checked Evolis' website on a whim today and they now list the following drivers for Mac:
EvolisCardPrinter-10.3.9.pkg.zip
EvolisCardPrinter-10.3-2.1.pkg.zip
EvolisCardPrinter-10.4-2.1.pkg.zip

I was also surprised to see they now offer Linux support, so 'woo-hoo'.

I'm going to stop providing the driver to people who email me now and encourage them to download the driver through the proper channels (finally!) I happened to have a user name and login, required for driver downloads (provided to me when I first was messing around with this stuff).

I must have sent 8 or 9 people Mac Pebble drivers due to incompetent Evolis distribution practices, but I am glad Evolis finally (at least) posted them up on their download page.
 
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