Transfer sheet machine

[mrose]

Which 1 do you think works best (they are both under $100)? How much did it cost for the print heads and ink?

[prairiegirl]

I would think that the Canon 4500 would work better because it has 5 cartridges whereas the IP3500 is only 4. I am currently using the IP3500 and the 4500 is in reserve. Canon always changes the printers so these are becoming obsolete. That is why it is good to go on a used goods website and pick it up cheap. I was lucky with the IP3500 because all the seller wanted was the ink and not the printer. he bought it on sale because the whole printer was cheaper to buy than replacing the ink cartidges! $20 is what I paid for a brand new printer. The Ip4500 wasn't so accessible and I thought it would be good to have it as well because using this technology is great business. I paid $140 on ebay for a brand new printer. Again, they are going obsolete so it was hard to find in Canada. If you go into the Deco artist website they will list what it costs and the shipping is not too bad. About $20 -$25 CAD. I think if you go to page 1 or 2 of this post I have listed the prices.

It is less expensive for me to order the special transfer sheets directly from England then to purchase from Chocolat chocolat. I get the order faster and save about $15. Chocolat-Chocolat is asking $135 for 100 sheets.

You have to swap out the cartidges and printhead with Deco artists. You can get these at Kopycake and other places because it is the same ink used for frosting sheets (cartidge that is, printhead probably from Deco artist or tomric or others who sell the system).

[tmriga]

I would think that the Canon 4500 would work better because it has 5 cartridges whereas the IP3500 is only 4. I am currently using the IP3500 and the 4500 is in reserve. Canon always changes the printers so these are becoming obsolete. That is why it is good to go on a used goods website and pick it up cheap. I was lucky with the IP3500 because all the seller wanted was the ink and not the printer. he bought it on sale because the whole printer was cheaper to buy than replacing the ink cartidges! $20 is what I paid for a brand new printer. The Ip4500 wasn't so accessible and I thought it would be good to have it as well because using this technology is great business. I paid $140 on ebay for a brand new printer. Again, they are going obsolete so it was hard to find in Canada. If you go into the Deco artist website they will list what it costs and the shipping is not too bad. About $20 -$25 CAD. I think if you go to page 1 or 2 of this post I have listed the prices.

It is less expensive for me to order the special transfer sheets directly from England then to purchase from Chocolat chocolat. I get the order faster and save about $15. Chocolat-Chocolat is asking $135 for 100 sheets.

You have to swap out the cartidges and printhead with Deco artists. You can get these at Kopycake and other places because it is the same ink used for frosting sheets (cartidge that is, printhead probably from Deco artist or tomric or others who sell the system).

A couple of months ago, I picked up two Canon IP3500s for $50 each at Office Depot. After reading this thread, I wish I would have bought three.

Theresa

[prairiegirl]

Staples was selling them out as well back in June for around $40. I spent 3 days thinking if I should buy one and when I went to buy a few they were completely sold out!!

[brokenscale]

I have a kopykake setup and wanted to do this but obviously it would run if printed on acetate sheets. Has anyone tried spraying the sheet with gelatin cocoa butter and eggwhites and printed with a kopykake system as prairiegirl said. Or could i just buy the special acetate sheets and print them on my kopykake system?

[Kerry Beal]

I've been contacted by someone who is having serious trouble with the Deco system. The transfers aren't transferring. She is using white chocolate (because the transfers don't show up on milk or dark) and getting it as warm as possible - but it just isn't working for her.

Any of you who are using this system regularly have any thoughts?

[mostlylana]

I was interested in this system and both Deb (prairiegirl) and Brian from Tomric sent me samples of an image I wanted to print. The ones from Deb printed just fine. The ones from Tomric did not - they wouldn't transfer. I did everything the same - actually, I did them all at the same time. I'm sorry I can't help with a solution but thought I would let you know of my experiences.

As an aside, both Deco and Kopykake now recommend the Canon IP4700. It is on sale at Amazon.com for $39.99 including shipping!!! Boy I wish I lived in the States... sigh... they won't ship this item to Canada.

http://www.amazon.com/Canon-iP4700-Premium-Printer-3742B002/dp/B002M78HVS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1274979533&sr=1-1

Here are the recommendations.

Deco: http://www.deco.uk.com/content/view/99/135/

Kopykake: http://www.kopykake.com/documents/PrinterInks-Xref.pdf

[schneich]

we use the deco system (printer, ink and sheets) and we are totally happy with it.

at the beginning we had the same issues with the non transferring transfers :-)

i called deco and they told me they have issues with certain batches. she send me

new ones for free, since then no prob. we use it pretty much only with white choc.

i color our white chocolate even whiter with a little bit of titaniumdioxide. i use

a wheelmachine for the white that is always at around 33.5 celsius, i hope that helps...

cheesr

t.

[Kerry Beal]

The person having trouble with the transfers had a suggestion to add some extra cocoa butter to the white chocolate. It worked - I suspect because the extra cocoa butter allowed an extra degree or two of heat.

[bdonaghy]

Kerry.

I just did a project with the sheets have some suggestions that helped . . .

* don't pre-print the sheets, print the number of moulds that you have.

* warm the metal backer to the mould with a hair dryer to warm it up.

* use chocolate a degree or two warmer than you usually use when in temper.

* after depositing chocolate, leave at room temperature for 15 minutes.

* go cold for complete crystallization, my fridge is sub 40F.

* bring back to room temperature before unmolding.

Following these recommendations I was getting a more than a 95% success rate.

But we can talk about this when you visit next week.

brian

[Kerry Beal]

Thanks Brian, look forward to hearing more about it. Meanwhile - I realize I had a response from the person having the trouble on what she finally came up with to solve the problem - so I'll add that here too.

Thank you for all your help. This is what evolved as my 'technique':

-I tempered the white chocolate, adding 1/2 cup of cocoa butter to 5 pounds of chocolate. I was using the Chocovision for this job so I waited until it was tempered and increased the temperature by two degrees.

-I stashed the molds in my warming cabinet to keep them toasty.

-I printed off the transfer sheet, one at a time, and let it dry.

-I placed the sheet in the mold, assembled the mold, filled the mold as quickly as I could.

-I let the chocolate set up at room temperature for at least 10 minutes. ( Brian at Tomric said 10 minutes but it sometimes took a little longer. I figure it is our humidity down here; I blame a lot on the humidity, especially since I can control for it only so much and it doesn't blame back.)

-Then I put the mold in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes, the frig is at 38 degrees. ( Brian said 30 minutes at 40 degrees)

-Then we put it in the freezer for 2 minutes, no more than 2 to 3 minutes to avoid condensation.

-We unmold and allow them to warm up to room temperature before packaging.

[RWood]

Thanks for the info on these. I just got the sheets and USB today, so now comes the experimenting. I'll post what experiences I have.

[Marmish]

Kerry, I saw this method for printing silkscreens and thought it might be useful to you.

[Kerry Beal]

Kerry, I saw this method for printing silkscreens and thought it might be useful to you.

Neat!

[prairiegirl]

i don't like Deco Artists new sheets. I think they are terrible. One of the solutions for printing is to take the contrast and colour resolution down by 10-20% and print quality as standard (not high). Because I think the volume of ink is to high and gets completely absorbed into the material on the special transfer sheets. Thus, the image sticks to the transfer sheet and not to the chocolate. it is important to make the white chocolate a bit warmer than the standard 29 Celcius so that the ink will take to the chocolate.

If you google chocosheets you will get a about 3 or 4 companies pulling up. 2 are in the Nederlands and they are the sheets you want. One is called Cake art international. I use these ones and I purchase them using a trade account for better pricing from "Home chocolate Factory" in England. They also sell the software for printing, currently I use deco artist software. Don't use the Deco Artist printhead and ink. Don't Don't!! Why spend money you don't need to spend. In North America I am purchasing the edible ink from PhotoFrost and they will fit straight into your printer. If you purchase software from Cake Art intl then you can use whatever printer you want and photofrost sells a whole variety of ink cartidges. With Deco Artist you are stuck with limited choices for printers...Canon 4700 I think is now the newest version.

[RWood]

So, for the first time I've ever tried this, they came out pretty good (pics aren't that great). The small round is my logo, and the rectangle is for my friends new catering company I will be working for. I followed some of the previous advice and added a small amount of cocoa butter to the white chocolate, tempered it (in my Rev Delta) and then raised the temp two degrees. All the chocolates I use are really fluid, so I was worried about it being too thin, but I just let them sit longer before dumping the chocolate out.

I just received these sheets from Tomric, and they were back ordered for a couple of weeks. I may have gotten a good batch.

My only gripe so far is the software, it could really be a lot better. It needs more options on editing and printing. The small mold does not print right for 28 cavities, it only printed 15. Kind of annoying to fit them in the right places. The rectangle could be edited better if the thing would let me.

All in all though, I am happy with how it worked.

[prairiegirl]

Nice. I like how the colours came thru. The software could be improved!

[RWood]

So, a few more tries with the software. One is a better version of the Aqua Terra logo (the white background is what it really looks like), the second is the logo of my favorite band, Queensryche, and the photo one is my cat Ginger. It actually came out pretty well using a photo.

Gotta get my airbrush to spray a little better so the backgrounds are more solid, but it's getting there.

[prairiegirl]

My latest update on printers, ink and chocosheets. Printers: Canon IP4700 is on sale thru London Drugs in Canada for $80CAD. You can by this online. I am going to try the spongeless ink cartridges from Icing Images.com. They also manufacture chocosheets so I will try the sheets. I am having trouble with Photofrost. They supposedly sent me some replacement ink cartridges for some faulty ones I received. The ink has not arrived yet and I am convinced that they never will! I have called them twice saying I have not received anything and my mailox remains lonely!

[mostlylana]

Hi Deb,

Thanks for the head's up on the sale of the Canon IP4700at London Drugs. I called and they've put one aside for me. Now the rest of what you're saying I don't understand! - but I'm sure I will once I've done some research. Keep us posted with what works best - you've got so much experience with this.

[Chocolot]

Can these transfer sheets only be used on magnetic molds?

[Kerry Beal]

Can these transfer sheets only be used on magnetic molds?

Nope - you can cut them and drop them on the top of enrobed items (or leave the sheet whole and drop across a whole bunch of enrobed items).