Over the past 10 years, HID Global / Fargo has been manufacturing the HDP5000 retransfer card printer. 

During this time, we've seen the good and the bad stemming from this overall great printer, and recently have stumbled upon even more new findings.

The NEW model HDP5000, made as of 2013, and have little to no issues.

The cards are printed quickly and of good quality, and we rarely encounter any major problems, including the reoccurring issues from the pre-2013 model.

The OLD model HDP5000 however, made before 2013, we see many of these with the same problems time and time again.

While this printer still can produce great cards, there are many 'typical' issues that surround using this model, namely related to the clear transfer film. 

Check our other NEWS post with information on the transfer film.

The OLD model printer should be using the printer Driver version 2.3.0.5, and printer Firmware version 4.1.8.

The NEW (current) model printer should be using the printer Driver version 2.7.0.3.4, and printer Firmware version 5.3.8 (5.4.5 is currently on the Fargo website, yet there are unresolved issues with this version, so it is recommended to stay with 5.3.8 which is more stable).

Many clients have a mix of OLD and NEW model printers, sometimes networked and running off 1 central driver.  In this scenario, you may very well experience a slew of issues.

As each model printer should run using its own driver and FW, if you mix them up...running OLD printers with the NEW driver or FW...running NEW printers with the OLD driver...some possible hiccups are as follows:

• 'wrong ribbon' error when a print job is sent
• lamination module is shown as a duplex unit in Fargo Workbench, or vice versa
• you can not enable the 'print both sides' option in the driver, even if you have a flipper module

Some equations can work, where the printer models are mixed, and different drivers and FW are being used.  But to avoid headaches and lost time scratching your head, it's always best to stay with the correct combination of driver and FW.