What to look for

If you’re thinking of buying a heat press for your business or for personal use, here are seven of the most important things to consider when shopping around for a new machine:

1. Even Heat Distribution

You want to make sure the heat press can provide even heat distribution across the platen. This will help to avoid cold spots, which can lead to misapplied transfers. Every Ricoma and iKonix heat press is capable of providing an adequate amount of heat across their platens, ensuring even heat distribution and a perfect application no matter which substrate you’re transferring onto.

2. Temperature Control

A heat press should allow you to control the temperature to ensure you’re using the right amount of heat for a job. Too little heat, and the adhesives needed to hold the graphic may not be activated. Too much heat, and the adhesives of a transfer may be pushed out from the edges of the image, leading to undesired results. Ricoma heat presses allow you to easily set the temperature by utilizing its built-in digital touch screen or the temperature control panel found on the iKonix heat presses. All heat presses even come equipped with a timer control to ensure you don’t underheat or overheat the transfer.

3. Even Pressure

Make sure the heat press allows you to adjust the pressure with ease in order to get an even application across the transfer. Every heat press from Ricoma and iKonix has an adjustable pressure knob that allows you to manually set the right amount of pressure depending on the thickness of the substrate. Also, their powerful clamp mechanism ensures complete end-to-end pressure and heating with minimal effort.

4. Safe & Effortless Garment Positioning

No one wants to burn their arms or hands trying to slide garments on and off a heat press, let alone damage the garments. So, a heat press should give you the ability to easily place and remove any substrate on its platen. Ricoma and iKonix heat presses are all designed with your safety in mind. Not only are they safe to use, but they are also manufactured with the user in mind, meaning you can position your substrates with almost no effort. Ricoma brand flat heat presses also offer a slide-out platen that allows you to place your garment outside of the heating element and then slide the garment back in place.

5. Easy to Open & Close

It’s no fun working with a heat press that requires a little elbow grease to get it to open and close. And the more you use it, the more relevant this feature becomes. You don’t have to worry about that with Ricoma heat presses as they have a convenient auto-open feature, which not only adds to the safety but also allows you to save time on high-volume printing tasks.

With all these factors in mind, let’s go over one of the most important features of all Ricoma and iKonix heat presses—the display panel.

The Ricoma and iKonix flat heat presses are an ideal choice for anyone interested in printing on t-shirts, sweatshirts, totes, mousepads, and more. Whether you specialize in heat transfers, sublimation, vinyl, or DTG, these heat presses complement all types of printing methods. You can even use them with other decoration methods like embroidery to create stunning mixed-media products for your customers.

These clamshell style heat presses are made of steel and aluminum material, which means they can handle heavy-duty applications and frequent usage. Not to mention the clamp mechanism ensures even heat dispersion and pressure across the garment. Also, unlike manual presses, the auto-release function on the Ricoma flat heat presses is designed to automatically lift the heating plate once the timer expires. This ensures that the designs aren’t pressed too long onto garments. The iKonix line of heat presses are manual, but the built-in timer on the display panel will let you know when it’s time to open the press, which you can easily do by lifting the handle.

Another amazing feature of the Ricoma flat heat press is the drawer-style lower platen, which gives you more room to lay down your garment without exposing your hands to the hot top platen. The iKonix line does not have a slide out platen, but its silicone gel baseboard can endure temperatures up to 575°F/301℃ without deforming, and you can adjust the pressure to your preference. For those wanting to start a custom apparel business, the Ricoma and iKonix flat heat presses are perfect for printing unique designs onto many different substrates.

Cap heat presses are great for anyone who wants to create a variety of custom caps with unique designs, illustrations, and even high-quality images printed on them. With a cap heat press, you can easily print on trucker, fitted, snapback, strapback, flexfit, 5-panel, and visor caps. Not to mention, you can complete many heat transfer applications, including digitally printed heat transfers, screen printed transfers, heat transfer vinyl, sublimation, patches, rhinestones, and much more.

Both Ricoma and iKonix cap heat presses utilize a powerful clamp mechanism that ensures complete end-to-end pressure and heating, guaranteeing your transfers come out perfect every time. And when the timer ends, the Ricoma cap press’s auto-open feature automatically lifts the heating plate, reducing the chance of damaging the cap and providing you the freedom to multitask. When it comes to features, Ricoma’s cap heat press has a quick heating feature that allows you to start pressing caps immediately. While the iKonix cap heat press has a cap hold down device to ensure your cap will stay in place while being pressed. Both brand’s cap heat press features and durability make them a reliable investment for people interested in starting a printing business or expanding into printing on caps.

A plate heat press has a circular heating plate that is perfect for printing images, illustrations, text, and more directly onto the plate’s surface. You can create custom plates for holidays and events such as Christmas, Thanksgiving, Mother’s Day, and birthdays.

Like the brand’s other heat presses, the Ricoma plate heat press has a useful auto-release function. After you’ve pressed your plate and the time is up on the machine, the auto-release function automatically lifts the heating plate. This guarantees that the plate is only pressed for the time you set, reducing the chance of damaging or discoloring the plate. In addition to the auto-release function, the parameters settings option, which is available on both Ricoma and iKonix machines, allows you to preset heating times and temperatures for future projects. Since all the settings have been saved onto the machine’s memory, you’ll spend less time setting up the machine. And while you need two different iKonix plate heat presses to press five-inch and six-inch plates, the Ricoma plate heat press can do both sizes. If you want to make beautiful plates for your customers, the Ricoma and iKonix plate heat press is the best machine for the job.

Mug heat presses are designed to heat transfer quotes, illustrations, logos and more onto mugs. Depending on the press and what heating elements it comes with, a mug heat press can also be used on cups, water bottles, and more. With this style of heat press, you can do digitally printed and screen-printed transfers, heat transfer vinyl, and sublimation. This allows you to create all sorts of novelty mugs for customers.

The Ricoma mug heat press is manufactured with high-quality parts, creating a durable, long-lasting machine. And its heating element ensures even heat dispersion and pressure across the mug. Additionally, the mug heat press boasts a statistics feature that shows you how many mugs you can produce in a certain amount of time. This means you can give clients more precise quotes for their orders while also having more control over your production timeline. Just as important as the statistics feature is the quick heating feature, which will increase your productivity and give you faster turnaround times.

iKonix has three different mug heat presses. The iKonix 4-in-1 Digital Mug Heat Press comes with four heating elements of various sizes so you can heat press different types of mugs and cups, depending on your needs. The iKonix Digital Mug Heat Press (HP-15x5M) allows you to press five mugs at the same time, while the iKonix Mug Heat Press (HP-04M) is a standard mug heat press that can only press one mug at a time. They all have digital controls, adjustable pressure, and wrap-around heating coverage.

All in all, the Ricoma and iKonix mug heat presses are must-have machines for your custom apparel business if you want to create stunning mugs quickly and effectively.

A multifunction heat press allows you to heat press many different substrates. By purchasing one of these machines, you won’t have to buy a separate flat, cap, plate, or mug heat press. The iKonix multifunction heat press series has two heat presses. The iKonix 4-in-1 Multifunction Heat Press is constructed with a steel frame, which means it’s durable and can handle heavy-duty applications and frequent usage. This heat press comes with a coated heat platen and a mug, plate, and cap press attachment. Its adjustable timer automatically starts when the heat press is engaged, so you don’t have to start it yourself, and it emits a sound when the timer is up. Additionally, the iKonix 4-in-1 Multifunction Heat Press has a power on/off indicator switch and an extra thick heat plate that provides higher pressure and even temperature distribution.

The other multifunction heat press, the iKonix 6-in-1 Multifunction Heat Press, is the same as the other except it comes with extra mug and plate press attachments. So, if you’re looking to heat press different types of substrates, then the iKonix multifunction heat presses can do just that and more.

We hope this detailed breakdown of heat presses will help you become a more confident and informed buyer. Make sure to consider what substrates you want to customize and what heat press features are essential for you to run your business.