Views: 10 Author: Site Editor Publish Time: 2022-04-22 Origin: Site
When it comes to celebrations, people love cake. Weddings, birthdays, graduation parties and other special events cry out for a giant frosted pastry. But when you bake a cake, you have to decide how to decorate it. Some people keep things simple. Spread some frosting around with a spatula, and call it good. Others are veritable home cake masters. They add fancy rosettes and decorations that you’d expect to buy from a bakery. But you don’t have to be a cake master to make an edible ink cake. All you need is the right equipment, and a cake you want to decorate.
So, what makes an edible ink printer different from a normal printer? Strictly speaking, there’s no such thing, except for very large printers for commercial bakeries. Edible ink printers are simply normal printers that have been repurposed for printing with edible ink. That said, there are a couple of things that make some printers better than others. To begin with, they need to be able to accommodate thicker sheets of paper. Even the flimsiest edible sheets are thicker than your average office paper. Secondly, they need to have wide ink nozzles. Edible ink is a bit tackier than normal ink, and needs to be able to flow freely.
We’re about to look at two of the best edible ink cake printers on the market. We’ll start by reviewing the Canon PIXMA TS9520 with Icinginks Cake Ink & Frosting Sheets. This is a standalone printer, along with popular edible paper. We’ll follow up by examining the IcingImages Platinum Plus Edible Printer System. This is an all-in-one edible ink printing kit that comes with everything you need to get started. We’ll compare both options, and look at all aspects. We’ll start with the printer quality, and how they’re designed. We’ll look at the paper they can use and the printing capability. We’ll also talk about the inks and the papers. After that, we’ll know whether you’re better off buying the kit or outfitting the Canon printer. Let’s begin!
Canon is a well-known manufacturer that needs no introduction. Their PIXMA TS9520 printer is one of the more popular icing printers on the market. Like most edible ink printers, it’s also perfectly-suited for office printing. But due to their design, the entire PIXMA series has seen use in kitchens. The size of the unit is 18.5 inches wide, 14.5 inches deep, and 7.6 inches tall. That’s a bit larger than the printers in the IcingImages printer, and it’s correspondingly heavier. In total, it tips the scales at 21.3 pounds.
The design is otherwise nearly identical. On top, there’s a copier/scanner assembly, rather than a fax/scanner. Functionally, it’s the same, since you wouldn’t be sending faxes anyway. There’s a rear paper tray that holds 100 sheets, or about 20 sheets of edible paper. There’s also a matching front tray, with an identical capacity. Printing is relatively brisk, at about 10 pages per minute. Your exact speed will vary based on the image complexity, but it’s reasonably fast regardless.
That said, there’s a huge difference in the sizes of paper you can use. The IcingImages package includes only printers that support up to legal sized paper. The TS9520 is far more versatile. It can print on paper from 3.5 x 3.5 inches all the way up to oversized 11 x 17-inch paper. This gives you a ton of flexibility, whether you want to print very large or very small cakes. You can even print small circular wafers for cupcakes.
As for your printing source, you have plenty of options. The TS9520 supports both WiFi and Ethernet connectivity, and is ready to be a network printer out of the box. This makes it easy to use with your desktop, laptop, tablet, or smartphone. You even get access to a handful of different online printing services. You can use AirPrint or Mopria, both of which make it easy to set up your image printing the way you like. If that’s not enough, there’s even an SD card slot built into the front of the housing. You can take pictures directly from your digital camera and print them onto your cake.
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