A 3D-Printed Business Card Embosser

cool

But can it do watermarks?

I like how they kept it simple and minimal. If you look into embossers, their form factor is quite different (more akin to a construction stapler).

I've been tinkering with a variation on the theme -- something that can emboss paper / cardboard / thin sheet metal. 3D printed dies work great, but it's some rabbit hole! Lots and lots to learn.

For some inexplicable reason, this site does not load properly for me. It also has apparently eaten all my memory.

Edit: it works if you put it through archive.ph: https://archive.ph/ruSeX

And here’s the model collection: https://makerworld.com/en/collections/453534-business-card-e...

It would be interesting to try to have actual registration so that the embossed design can interact with the printed copy rather that just being an arbitrary background decoration.

The way I understand your comment is you could have a scene or objects printed on a card, then line up an embossed design over the print to create depth or imprint specific areas of the print creating various effects. That would be interesting

You could have a detent on the edge of the platen for a consistent starting position.

Same problem for me on Firefox.

Eventually, I’ll have a fancy business card like Paul Allen’s!

also a tool that generates the emboss pattern based on the design of the card. so that for example a logo on the card gets embossed.

Same. But disable JavaScript and you can see it.

Or you could just print the business cards themselves with your 3D-printer.

Same issue for me on Android + Firefox. It times out connections in other apps too and brings my phone to a halt.

JS code like that should be made illegal lol

or the text in 3d, like credit cards used to be

That would be really slow and not as versatile as an embosser.

I wish it was easy for a CAD n00b to create templates for this. Like I want my business card to be the emboss

I think that was not done by embossing but by "3d printing" on the business card directly.

I don't think I'm misremembering, but the back side of the card had recesses of the characters, so it was in fact embossed (in the UK at least).

You mean business or credit card? Credit Cards I believe was embossing, you had the negative of the numbers on the back. They did that because before you had electronic card readers, merchant were taking credit card payments by making a carbon copy of the credit card number on the invoice: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_card_imprinter

Make two blocks sized as business card. Extrude your graphic in one and make inverse hole of the graphic with some tolerance in the other. You will get better results that's easy to model, print and align.

Just pushing two blocks by hand and adding your weight will most likely be enough to make nice impression. The reason is that you have the inverted side - normally you would have just one plate pushing against some softer rubber so the paper has nowhere to go and you need a lot more force.

Tbh this roller design is needlesly complicated for business cards. Printing the rolls with overhangs will require supports. Roller press for graphics has some advantages like consistency of force and pressing of different sized/long pieces. None of which are useful here. Besides you wouldn't have emboss on the roll (unless you were printing infinite patterns) - you would press plate and paper through smooth roller press.

I don’t know what you mean. The technique of stamping the numbers on credit cards was literally called embossing.

Here is a video of a desktop scale embosser used for just that purpose: https://youtu.be/5ZQHSsFnACs?si=DWwgTScwl5HXkwGP

The part where the embossing daisy wheel is shown is at 18:10.

Here are machines used at an industrial scale: https://www.maticagroup.com/technologies/embossers/

They are nevertheless called “embossers”.

I'm in Estonia, and my bank issues debit and credit cards that are definitely embossed.

Cool idea and well designed model. Nice!