My parents are buying me an edible ink printer for my birthday. Which one should I ask for?

No opinions?

No opinions but very curious about what responses you may get...not sure I would buy one but I do find them interesting!

I recently bought a canon mx860 and am enjoying it very much. it has a scanner and printer ability so I can scan treasured photos and recreate on icing sheets. The set up and callibration (sp) took some time, just had to be patient (I dont recommend doing this at midnight, the night before a project is due). I googled consumer reports and reviews on the machine first, then looked at reviews for companies to supply ink and paper. Hope this helps!

go with an epson, I have the cannon and the print head keeps burning out (my repair guy said it happens all the time with edible ink) the print heads cost $50 to replace, thank God I bought the extended warranty (which cost more than the printer but I have made the money back in new print heads)

I have a cannon still until the warranty runs out. Then I will switch to Epson, don't know what model but check the websites for the various edible ink companies and see what printers are compatible

If you go to the search field and type in icing images into the author field there will be tons of topics that come up.Icingimages is Debbie the owner and she has some very good informative information on printers to buy and why and inks...Make sure you don't add a space between icing and images or it won't recognize it.

Kiddiekakes...I tried doing the search for "Icingimages" but the CC databases are kicking back some database errors (404 not found). Do you know what Debbie's user name might be? I will pm her to see if she has the info or knows of another site to visit for it. TIA

Hi Wrightway,
You can search under my name. But both printers are good printers. I have always used Canon because of the removable printhead. But if there is a lot of printhead burnout in the first year, the problem is in the ink, not the printer. This past week I did add an Epson to our line up of printers, but I only did this because Canon does not have a good wide format for edible imaging. I only looked in to the epsons after I found that our Newer Gold label ink was giving us very few problems and clogging was not one of them. So I investigated the Epsons...again. I had looked into them in the past but was not happy. The problem with the Epson is it does not have a removeable printhead. So if you do have a clog that you cant get out, you are out the printer. I will be glad to answer any questions you may have, but if you go to my forum posts you can see all that I have discussed on the subject. There is a lot of good information from a variety of sources. Good Luck and have fun!

I considered selling that printer, but what I found with Canon is the more cartridges you add, the more problems you have. The best conditions you can have with a canon is to have fewer cartridges (with 4 being the fewest). I beleive that one carries 8 if I remember correctly. The more cartridges you use, the more problems you can have. I had carried an 8 cartridge printer for a while and found that the expense was too high so for several years we imported Canon wide format printers that had 4 cartridges. They worked ok, but again, there were more problems with them then it was worth. Dont get me wrong, the smaller Canons like the 3600 are awesome. We changed ink manufacturers when the 3600 series came out and the results were so superior that, I tried it with the Epson and it has been spectacular. I had tried Epsons once before, but it was with a different ink supplier and I was not satisfied. As an owner of a company, I have several different goals. One of them is to have my employees giving the best possible service so if someone has troubles, we take as much time as needed to fix them. On that same note, I aim to have products that allow them to have as few of those phone calls as possible so if I dont like something, I will change it and find the best possible products for my customers. I have never liked the Epsons until now that it has beat the Canon wide formats in reliability, problems and color quality. We use all these different printers in our office and we finally retired our Canon wide formats. I am not saying all this because I stand to make a profit, I am not the only company that makes the Epson ink. I just dont want to see you pay all that money for the 9000 and it cost you more money to keep it going then its worth. I will be glad to answer any other questions you have! Good luck to you!

Very interesting! I feel very fortunate and humbled to see that so much time and dedication is apparent with this threads members. As I do not have a printer yet that is dedicated to only doing edible images, what in your opinion would be the best model (please give #) along with what inks to use with that model. Actually what would be the top Canon and top Epson (with exact model #s). This will help me tremendously in making a decision later in the year. I just bought the Cricut along with the McClures DVDs (cutting designs out of gumpaste/modeling choc, etc) so I have to play and master that technique first before buying this new toy...I mean technique.

This would make an excellent topic in one of the upcoming CC magazines...you guys should contact Jackie!!

Well, I like the Canon ip3600. It is an inexpensive printer, but has beautiful results. It does take the Gold Label Spongeless Cartridges. But the largest it prints is 8.5x14. The Epson 1100 is awesome for the large prints. We are currently printing A3 which is a bit bigger then the other large sizes. We are hoping to add an 13x18 size as well. This also takes the Gold Label Spongless cartridges. I like the Gold Labels because they dont clog. I have had flow problems which are very easily remedied.

Hi Debbie

What is the best model of A3 printer you have used?

I bought an Epson Artisan 1430 for my company and it has caused me far to many problems.

The Canon ix6820 works great!

The Canon iX6820 is not available in the Middle East, do you think the Canon PIXMA iX 6840 would be just as good?

Hi Debbie,

I am in Australia and the current model the Canon are selling is the Canon 5560. You can not get the 5520 here. The 5560 is cheap (under AUD$100 in fact so cheap I bought a second as a backup but was hoping I would not need it this soon) but it does not have a removable print and after only one week of having it the black is already coming out with a green tinge to it and the second line of magenta is not coming out well. I have tried several print cleans and a few deep cleans but no real difference. Is there any other way to clean a non removable print head. It seems Canon are moving to non removable heads for all their printers.

Am I better getting a new head for my old 5350 which I gave up on as even after lots of attempts at cleaning I could not get a decent result out of. I fear the problem with this one might be electronic failure and I am not sure if a new print head will solve all the issues. 

Thanks for any light you can shed on my issues.

When I have had super clogged printheads, I have used a syringe (without the needle) to force Pure Grain Alcohol (PGA) through the nozzles.  Might be one last thing to try before you order another one.  It may take several passes with the PGA to start seeing results.

I have just found out that the advice that I was given about the new Canon printer print heads was not correct they do come out. Certainly good news. If anyone is interested see the following on how to remove them. 

I've had both - I burned through 2 Epsons in about a year and a half - I have had one Canon for about 2 years now and it's still going strong.  I wouldn't get another Epson, but that's just been my experience.  YMMV.

The printheads DO come out.  Just open the lid and pull the printhead bar forward.  It does have a lot of resistance, but it does release it and allow you to take it out!

AI have managed to get the print head out. However, I am getting a lot of issues with the print head blocking. I have tried cleaning it with water and steam but the magenta is still blocked. Should I be looking at a different printer. This one is only a month old and I am getting a lot of trouble with it.

Based on my experience I would certainly not recommend a Canon 5560 for edibles. I have got a steam cleaner to clean the head, I only went this far after all the other methods that I had read about failed. The magenta come clean and it seems fine but a day or two later it is not printing and magenta. Additionally the black is printing green even when the magenta is printing well. Not sure what is happening with that one. At least I had the 5350 for 12 months before I started to get any problems. I am about to give up with this one. Does anyone have a new printer that is available in Australia that they are having good results with??

We have had a lot of success with that line of printers, but I know many companies have had problems.  Make sure the problem is not with the cartridge.  If the black is printing green, it sounds like other colors may not be working either. Run a nozzle check to see what colors are working and what are not.  Often times black is comprised of several different colors, its not just the black cartridge printing the black color.