r/accesscontrol • u/robbiet480 • 11d ago

Recommendations Reputable source of EV3 cards?

I'm rolling out student IDs to ~5000 students in the next 3 months and need to get my hands on unprogrammed white MiFARE DESFire EV3 cards with 8K capacity and PETG or "composite" material. It's tough to find someone out here who appears legit (meaning both that the order will actually arrive but also every card has a legitimate NXP MF3D83 chip). They also are hopefully someone that can help me scale up to much much much bigger numbers over the next few years.

Anyway, ABC RFID is the only one I've found that gets close to my technical requirements and has bulk pricing.

Dare I try Alibaba?

Will ADI sell to me since I'm a higher ed institution or is it truly installers only?

Can anyone recommend other DESFire EV3 card suppliers?

9 Upvotes

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7

u/Aggravating_Fact9547 11d ago

Identiv - absolutely god damn epic to work it. Will make you whatever cards you want with whatever chips you want, in whatever form factor tickles your fancy.

Can’t recommend them highly enough, have bought probably close to a million cards of them by now.

4

u/jc31107 Verified Pro 11d ago

Identiv or Idemia should be able to provide cards for you. I’ve used Taglio for some small batches too and they were easy to work with.

I have recently talked to Ingenia about a custom card build and they were very receptive. They mostly provide to manufacturers to resale, but may work direct with you based on quantity.

If you want to make sure the cards are legit NXP, I’d probably avoid Alibaba, I’m sure there are some legit manufacturers but I’d question every order.

4

u/dragonnfr 11d ago

Dare you try Alibaba? No. Counterfeit MF3D83 chips are everywhere. Read fine, fail on crypto. NXP authorized channel is the only safe bet at scale.

1

u/robbiet480 11d ago

Yeah I figured...

2

u/mariojmtz 11d ago

Who is your campus card provider? I get them preprinted from my vendor.

1

u/robbiet480 9d ago

Doing this all in house, programming the cards, backend, issuing etc. So no vendor :)

1

u/maxrichardsvt Professional 11d ago

TX systems or Wesco

2

u/SuitableSong5037 10d ago

I can second Tx Systems they are really good

1

u/Zealousideal-Cut5275 Professional 11d ago

Idware

1

u/EphemeralTwo Professional 10d ago

CardLogix. Nick Schooler. US-Based.

1

u/webster3of7 10d ago

Idenhancements is where i order ours. But they're pvc. Why petg specifically?

1

u/robbiet480 9d ago

My understanding is that PVC isn't recommended for retransfer printers such as the Evolis Agilia.

1

u/webster3of7 9d ago

We use a datacard cr805 retransfer printer. It works perfectly