Feature test results

Good looking out

Figured I'd share my feature test results while they're fresh. Ran the usual flashlight check first—mostly looking for delamination around the edges and any separation between the polycarbonate layers. Everything held up solid, no lifting or bubbles. It's always the first thing I check because honestly, if that fails, nothing else matters.

Since the lamination passed, I went ahead and checked the rest of the features. The hologram overlay was decent—like, real metallic shifting under direct light, not just a printed rainbow pattern. You can see the state seal and border elements transition clearly when you tilt it. The ghost image on the portrait wasn't quite sharp enough to match a real DMV card, but it's present and in the right position without that "stuck on" look. No weird pixelation around the edges either.

Perforation pattern—the state abbreviation holes—were uniform in size and spacing. No ragged edges or partially punched dots, which is a good sign. Ran my finger over the back side and couldn't feel any raised rim, so the punching was clean. That's something a lot of budget blanks screw up.

Then I hit the UV lamp next. The state outline and the secondary guilloche patterns lit up correctly under 365nm. No spillover or bleeding into the surrounding laminate. The small microtext lines underneath also fluoresced faintly, which is a nice little touch. Didn't see any missing elements or dead spots in the UV layer.

Finally ran it through a basic PDF417 scanner app and a few barcode readers. All the encoded data parsed cleanly—no mismatched fields or garbage characters. The 2D barcode on the back scanned on the first try at a slight angle, which is usually a good sign the reflectivity and contrast are dialed in. I didn't test against a government system or anything, just consumer-grade hardware, but if it passes there it's a solid baseline.

Overall, the delamination resistance was the headline, but the rest of the security features held up pretty well too. Not everything is perfect—the ghost image could be tighter and the hologram might not fool a trained eye under a loupe—but for general use it's a well-put-together piece. I'd be interested to hear if anyone else has run similar checks and caught something I missed.

The edges are sealed properly now. Used to be a weak point