Halogen mug oven ... first impressions ...

[webtrekker]

I'd buy just one oven first Gary and see how you manage. I don't make things in large quantities so time isn't a problem for me.

[smiley_mug]

Thanks for this thread Webtrekker I've found it really helpful. I bought the Daewoo Halogen Oven then i had to wait ages for my mug wraps to come from China, even though they were listed as being in the UK and were supposed to take about 4 days. Anyway I finally tried printing 4 mugs today but I'm disappointed with results and I hoped you could give me some pointers. The blacks have come out brownish/blurred is this a sign of too long or too hot? Is it because I left them a while in the wraps to cool down. If I try dunking in the wraps, are the wraps a pain to dry afterwards? any tips for drying in time for needing them again 20 mins later? It was hard enough with the mug press ruining 1 mug at a time but it is really painful losing 4 :'( so should i be testing with just one mug to get the temperature right or will the temp change again as I move up to 4 mugs? webtrekker you mention your bulldog clips stopping movement of the paper due to the rack is there any chance of a picture of your set up please? if anyone has the Daewoo Halogen air Fryer Low Fat Oven - 12L please can you share your settings for 4 mugs, the temperature dial is really badly designed and difficult to see what it is pointing at but I tried to do 200C and 20 minutes. Thanks for reading and any help is really appreciated as always

[rabb]

I thought I'd try a halogen mug oven to see if there were any advantages/disadvantages over a mug press or a conventional electric/gas cooker.

Well, I only received it yesterday, but so far the results are excellent!

This is the oven ...



You may notice that I have an oven thermometer in there too. This is because you can't trust the temperature dial to give you the exact temperature you need for sublimation. With the dial set at 180 deg C it was only measuring 160 deg C on the thermometer, so I fiddled around and now have it 'cooking' at 180 deg C. The thermometer was £3.99 from Amazon.

I've now got it down to 10 mins to print a single mug, using the cheap (less than a fiver) silicone mug wraps from ebay. I haven't had time to try 4 mugs yet but I'll get around to it soon.

The prints blew me away! MUCH sharper than any I've produced with my mug presses, particulary small text. Colours were great and uniform, and black was very black, not brown. Inks and paper are the same I've always used, from City Ink Express. Mugs are 10oz Listawood Duraglaze Durham AAA.

These ovens only take a few minutes to reach temperature, which is good. The very bright light of the halogen bulb switching on and off is a bit annoying when I'm working on the computer at the same time, but bearable. You can hear the blower but it's nothing excessive and the only other sound is the timer ticking.

All in all, it looks like I'm going to be doing most, if not all of my mugs in the oven from now on.

I went and bought one of these too and bought the Cityinkexpress paper to go with my CIE inks. WOW!!!!!!

I am mightily impressed. Full wrap on two mugs and both perfect. A fraction of the cost of the Galaxy Pro mug press. I too bought a cheapo thermometer from Amazon and have the oven dialled in at 180c.

Oven at 180c for 15 minutes for two mugs.

Blown away to be honest. This is my new method now going forward. Mug for personal consumption BTW and not resale

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[webtrekker]

Cracking job!

For full-area prints it's the way to go for me. I'm pleased you're finding the CIE inks and paper work great too.

[smiley_mug]

my experience of using the halogen oven so far I've learnt
even though the ovens can do 4 mugs at once they take quite a while to prepare, putting on the sub paper then the protective paper then the wrap. so having 2 ovens going at once doesn't allow you enough time to do this and 'keep the kettle boiling'.
The miracle glove you can buy makes it really easy to remove the wraps as soon as they come out.
The dials on the halogen ovens are not accurate at all, the slightest little nudge to the dial gave a 10 degree C temp difference so best to have the cheap oven thermometer like already mentioned. I haven't found the consistency of results which others speak of, some days my settings work fine and then the next i need to add more time. I work in the garage so i wonder if outdoor temp makes a if difference here. Also biggest lesson for me switching from mug press to halogen is that the yellow heat resistant tape that is fine in a mug press is suddenly putting yellow ink into the mugs where it touches directly in the halogen oven. I tried a different tape that was supposed to be higher quality and it is still marking, the solution is to take the paper wrap right up to the handles so the tape doesn't touch the mug directly but people using 2 wraps per A4 will already be doing this. Thanks for everyone's help with what I've learnt over the past couple of weeks

[rabb]

my experience of using the halogen oven so far I've learnt
even though the ovens can do 4 mugs at once they take quite a while to prepare, putting on the sub paper then the protective paper then the wrap. so having 2 ovens going at once doesn't allow you enough time to do this and 'keep the kettle boiling'.
The miracle glove you can buy makes it really easy to remove the wraps as soon as they come out.
The dials on the halogen ovens are not accurate at all, the slightest little nudge to the dial gave a 10 degree C temp difference so best to have the cheap oven thermometer like already mentioned. I haven't found the consistency of results which others speak of, some days my settings work fine and then the next i need to add more time. I work in the garage so i wonder if outdoor temp makes a if difference here. Also biggest lesson for me switching from mug press to halogen is that the yellow heat resistant tape that is fine in a mug press is suddenly putting yellow ink into the mugs where it touches directly in the halogen oven. I tried a different tape that was supposed to be higher quality and it is still marking, the solution is to take the paper wrap right up to the handles so the tape doesn't touch the mug directly but people using 2 wraps per A4 will already be doing this. Thanks for everyone's help with what I've learnt over the past couple of weeks

My mugs are stored at room teperature so perhaps you will need to preheat slightly before cooking?

What I did notice was that temp dives with more than 1 mug so I just waited until I was back in the ballpark of 180 before setting the timer running.

Sent from my SM-G965F using Tapatalk

[webtrekker]

[User Deleted]

[smiley_mug]

That's the top tip. Waiting until everything warms up to 180 starts everything off on a level playing field.

@smiley_mug Regarding heat tape, I've never experienced yellow marks from the tape. As this doesn't seem to happen in your mug press I'd say that your oven temperature is maybe higher than what you think.

well there are some older threads about the heat tape marking so it's not just me and the reason it doesn't do it in the heat press is ecause it is not getting heated near the handle in th epress the way it is in the oven. I've took the tempas low as I can go without it effecting the inks and I still get the yellow marks, its the xpress mugs I'm using and I'm down to 170C. anyway i'm getting round it by using paper to bridge the gap under the handles but I just wanted to warn others.

[webtrekker]

[User Deleted]

[smiley_mug]

The heat tape staining must be a problem specific to my mug type. Your comment prompted me to check the first mugs I did, i used some cheap ebay mugs that aren't dishwasher safe for experimenting to get my temps/times about right and they don't have the marks even though the temp was a lot higher on my early trials. Must be to do with the coating.
My silicone wraps pick up every detail if I don't use the protective paper!