All of our printers are fully converted at our premises in Stoke-on-Trent. We have over 15 years experience with colour laser printers (ceramic print system) and photocopiers since converting a Canon CLC700 for ceramic transfer printing back in 1999. Since then we have worked with printers from Canon, Xerox, Panasonic, Konica, Minolta and more recently Ricoh.

In order to prepare a printer for ceramic use it is necessary to replace the original developers and toners with specially manufactured high temperature stable ceramic toners. The whole process can be completed in a few hours after which the printer needs to be calibrated for use with the installed ceramic toners.

After purchasing a ceramic print system all you need to start producing your own ceramic transfers is a PC or Mac to generate your images, a decal paper on which to print the images and a means of applying a covercoat to transfer the image from the paper to the ceramic or glass article.

For best results we suggest using a screen printed covercoat, but if, like most of our clients you are inexperienced in screen printing then very acceptable results can be achieved with a dry laminated covercoat.

FotoCeramic supplies a full range of consumables for digital ceramic transfer printing.

Listed below are some of the current converted products which through our own knowledge and experience we have found to be most suitable for printing custom ceramic transfers.

FotoCeramic is a supplier of digital ceramic printers and digital ceramic systems for printing custom ceramic transfers or decals using a laser printer and special ceramic toners.

The ceramic digital printing system uses a standard colour digital printer. Printers such as the Ricoh SP C440 and the larger Ricoh SP C830 printer can be used for this purpose.

To be suitable for digital ceramic printing the laser printer must be toner based and use a two component technology.
This means that it must have a separate developer unit containing the toner and a carrier.

To convert the digital printer for printing custom ceramic transfers the colour developer units containing the carrier must be emptied of the original developer and replaced with a ceramic developer containing ceramic toner and the metal carrier. The developer units can be easily removed from the printer.
They are then taken apart to separate the photosensitive drum from the developer unit.
The developer unit is opened and the original developer is removed. Usually a toner vacuum cleaner is used here to remove the last remnants of the original developer. The new ceramic developer containing ceramic toner is then added to the unit, which is then reassembled and put back in the printer. Each developer unit should be removed in turn and the carrier replaced with a new carrier containing ceramic toner. FotoCeramic is supplier of the ceramic developers in which the carrier and ceramic toner have been mixed in the correct proportions for the digital printer.

On our YouTube channel FotoCeramic, hosted there is a growing collection of Tutorial videos on a variety of different maintenance methods for specific printers. As the collection grows you may see your specific printer be featured however If your printer is not featured you're welcome to contact us via any channel on the site.