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        Let’s be clear first: this product is not a high-tech Easy-Bake oven, even if it looks like an Easy-Bake oven. It prints the cookie, not the cookie. (Although we look forward to 3D printing.) What Eddie at Primera Technology does is simple. Technically named “Eddie the Edible Ink Printer” (because we just call it by its first name), this is a professional inkjet printer that uses certified food-safe inks. Combined with a customizable processing system, it allows you to batch print edible “media” like frosted cookies.
        Primera is known for its professional inkjet printers, including CD/DVD surface printers, as well as a wide range of label printers. (If you can’t help but link between cookies and CDs, then you’re on the right track.) This unique inkjet printer is ideal for those who can afford its high starting price (our test setup was $2,995) and also please follow the action. It could even be a money printing machine if you’re an adventurous person looking for a new side job selling baked goods.
        It’s easy to imagine Eddie as a “cookie printer”, but that’s not all he can do. My review only used white icing sugar cookie bases, some provided by Primera and some additional bases purchased elsewhere. (Primera itself doesn’t sell blanks, but they’re easy to find online.)
        Cookies aren’t the only food Eddie can use for printing. Using a special tray (I only have the cookie tray shown here in the picture), you can print edible images and sayings on other types of food, including macaroons, donuts, and even cupcakes, as long as they fit in width, height, and other specifications, specified for a specific pallet.
        The tray holds cookies or other food in place; it is drawn into the printer body by the feed mechanism, which then scans to determine if the cookie is properly placed and centered and adjusts accordingly. After the scan is complete, Eddie prints the image onto the surface of a biscuit or other treat. Eddie’s Facebook group is a great way to see what some incredible food consumers are becoming and offers a great way to get secondary support if needed.
        The review unit I received from Primera Technologies was a “basic” Eddie printer. It includes a printer, a three-color edible cartridge, and a motorized turntable with 12 round cookie trays on top. Eddie can print on other matte surfaces, but not on standard pallets. Links are also provided for downloading printer drivers and software for PC or Mac to create and/or place images on print templates.
        On the PC, the software is a stripped-down version of Seagull Scientific’s BarTender labeling utility. (Mac software is also included.) Finally, a detailed printer manual, in my case the BarTender software, is available for download. Primera also offers great personalized support within the purchase price, more on that later.
        Eddie arrived in a very large cardboard box filled with a bunch of smaller boxes. To say that it is well packaged is an understatement. Even the most clumsy delivery man probably won’t do much harm in a delivery despite heavy traction. The presence of a second assistant will significantly reduce the amount of unpacking and assembly work.
        At the same time, my Eddie was unpacked, assembled and ready for printing in about half an hour. As mentioned earlier, Eddie is primarily a carousel-driven inkjet printer. The assembly instructions in the manual include installing the motor (for the cookie turntable) and connecting it to the connector on the back of the printer, installing the crumb tray/filter and ink cartridge (the latter is very similar to any other inkjet printer) and placing the player on top of the player .
        The carousel holds up to 12 cookies, but you can print fewer cookies at a time if you wish. This carousel holds 2.5″ to 3.85″ diameter round cookies, and you can also use it with other edible shapes such as square and triangular cookies.
        By removing the small triangular spacers on the turntable, you can print other food shapes as well as round cookies from 3.5″ to 4.375″ in diameter and up to 2″ high. Third parties may offer special trays for other media and sizes. The Primera documentation lists some of the products that Eddie can print if the tray fits: sugar cookies, macaroni, graham crackers, marshmallows, cake pops, frosted cookies of any shape, white chocolate cookies, and more.
        A quick look at Eddie’s Facebook group page will give you a good idea of ​​some of the creative cookies users are creating. A smooth or matte cookie surface was a must for our samples, but enterprising Eddie users printed on a rougher surface. Everything is experimental.
        Once Eddie is built, it’s time to connect the interface and install the BarTender drivers and software. You can connect the printer via a direct wired USB, Wi-Fi, or Ethernet connection; the last method is the method I use. When I ran the setup utility, my computer immediately detected Eddie on the network and installed the printer driver automatically.
        The next step is to install the BarTender software and this is where I am stuck. BarTender software keeps crashing during installation. I suspect this is my fault as I don’t understand what exactly is installed. BarTender, developed and documented by a third party, periodically sets the SQL version, mainly to keep track of templates and users. I have SQL installed on the system I’m trying to install BarTender on, a conflict with an existing copy of SQL may be causing the installation to fail. BarTender gives you the option to install without SQL, and once I knew it was the right way, it fixed the installation issue.
        Primera customer support is provided in real time by highly trained and experienced technicians. Despite numerous walkthroughs, they couldn’t get me to install it on the original PC until I figured out what was wrong with the installation. The software keeps crashing until it finishes installing. In desperation, I pulled out a fairly new laptop, enabled the remote access technology, and within minutes, I was done. Still, it’s impressive support.
        Primera provides software for the actual layout of the images that will be sent to the printer. Both graphics/compositing utilities are developed by third parties and can be downloaded from the Primera website. For Mac users, BeLight Software’s Swift Publisher is provided. For PC, this is the already mentioned BarTender. These two packs were originally designed to print on round labels or CD/DVD surfaces, not cookies. However, BarTender is easy to use once installed.
        You can also use almost any graphics software that can create an image that matches the cookie/edible shape you are using. In addition to BarTender, I’ve also used Canva and Adobe Photoshop Elements to print cookies and had no issues matching the space format and successfully printing the cookies. The only consideration is the format of the images used. In my tests, I used PNG images, which are available for free download from several sites. I also used a JPG image that was resized and cropped in Photoshop Elements, saved as a PNG, and printed using Photoshop Elements and BarTender. If you are comfortable using a graphical editor, then everything is in order.
        Even if you don’t have much experience in this area, well-written and illustrated guides and online tutorials will make it easy for you to print your first cookie. And a selection of video tutorials can be downloaded. They will help you set up the printer, maintain it, and print cookies using BarTender. And if that’s not enough, Primera offers one-hour one-on-one training sessions. If you are a little unsure about your ability to use the printer and software, I recommend taking the time to read these manuals.
        The Eddie PC software consists of two separate parts. Primera PrintHub is a centralized management and reporting utility that loads automatically every time you launch Eddie’s software. You can also download it manually from the Windows start menu. It shows the status of the printer, the remaining ink levels, the last few print jobs, and the estimated cost of each print job. It also provides the ability to adjust calibration settings and order new cartridges. Primera estimates that between 1,400 and 2,700 3.5-inch cookies should fit in one ink tank, but this will vary greatly depending on the area of ​​the printed surface (“cookie coverage”?), the ink saturation selected, etc.
        The inkwell contains a food-safe three-color “ink” combination, which is essentially food coloring and water. Ink cartridges can cost anywhere from $130 to $140 straight from Primera. (Note that Primera offers US and EU versions of ink tanks that contain different ingredients and comply with US and European approvals for certain dyes.) These ink tanks may seem expensive, but given the expected yield per ink tank, the ink cost is likely to be negligible. compared to the cost of the cookies themselves, the icing, and the labor involved in making them.
        If you’re looking at Eddie as a business opportunity, you should look at the job price function. Primera is an example of a cost estimate for printing 3.5-inch round cookies with 50% coverage, which costs about 6 cents per cookie. Other examples range from 5 cents per cookie for light coverage to 9 cents for full coverage. The cookie cutters I bought cost about $1.50 each, so depending on how many cookies you print, you can make a good profit on your print job. Of course, with a $3,000 printer cost, you would need a large order to justify the purchase price.
        How did Eddie know how to properly center a print on a non-standard medium like a cookie? If necessary, you can adjust image alignment in the PrintHub utility as shown above. You can also calibrate on the printer itself using the two buttons next to the print status LED on the top of the printer. To calibrate, press and hold both buttons for 3 seconds. Simply pressing these buttons puts the printer into demo mode, which moves cookies in and out of the printer and the turntable turns, but no cookies are actually printed. If you need more simultaneous production capacity, PrintHub also lets you manage multiple Eddie printers.
        The second piece of software is the BarTender utility, which allows you to create images to be printed on cookies. I found BarTender to be easy to use and if you have experience with graphics programs like Canva, Photoshop, or even Paint, you shouldn’t have any trouble getting up and running quickly.
        You first specify an empty template (or a previous template if you want to repeat the print job). Next, specify the user settings and select the so-called “paper size”. Expect to see a list of template sizes, but often you may want to add the diameter of the edible you want to print. After resizing, you can specify the background color and move the printable image onto the template. If your image contains a background, the guide in the guide explains how to remove it with Paint 3D. The manual also has a section on printing from other programs. I have found that printing from Canva and Photoshop Elements is as easy as using BarTender. Once you are satisfied with the on-screen simulation results, you are ready to print.
        Upload cookie presets to the carousel, enter the number of cookies in BarTender, and click the print icon. The carousel can hold up to 12 cookies at a time and stops when the last cookie has been printed, so you can remove the printed cookie from the carousel and reload it with a new empty one.
        I printed about 75 cookies for review. One thing the instructions don’t tell you is that when you order cookie cutters, you can’t assume they are the size listed. Mine were, but the Primera blanks sent with the printer were slightly smaller in diameter than the ones I ordered for myself, so the first few cookies I printed from the blanks I ordered had an unprinted ring around the edge, which I quickly corrected.
        Another little problem I had was that not all cookie bases were perfectly round. Some have a pronounced oval shape. This resulted in some cookies being printed with inaccurately centered images. Depending on the number of cookies that have this issue, one solution might be to remove them from the queue and change their size. Of course, if there are only a few of these cookies, you can simply refuse to use them or accept some defective cookies (although if you charge a fairly small fee for a cookie, you can keep those not-so-necessary cookies). – testing of newly developed round blanks).
        Finally, expect to adjust the saturation setting before typing a lot. BarTender has a bright mode, and if you’re printing cookies with color graphics, you can expect to use some white space when you reset it to a suitable setting.
        Obviously Eddie Cookie Printer is not for the most casual user who will use it for parties from time to time. It is large, expensive and industrial. It is intended for those who will produce custom-made products in quantities high enough to justify the purchase price. This may include bakeries, event organizers, and others who can successfully sell services. If you fall into this category, you’ll find that Eddie is easy to use and a lot of fun once you get the hang of the software.
        There are many other terrible automation tools out there that can help you, the aspiring restaurateur, automate your business in a cheaper way. Food-safe adapters for Cricut machines, for example, can also cut down on the manual labor involved in selling non-standard food products and cost you hundreds of dollars instead of thousands. (Although Cricut Food Solutions cuts out shapes or text, it does not print them.)
        However, few of them are as funny as Eddie in action. Think about this: you can actually display Eddie in your store, kiosk, or window display as part of your promotional offer and the appeal of the finished product. Theoretically, Eddie’s cookie wow factor could help him market himself in public print media.
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        It’s easy to imagine Eddie as a cookie printer, but that’s not all he can do. My review only used white icing sugar cookie bases, some provided by Primera and some additional bases purchased elsewhere. (Primera itself doesn’t sell blanks, but they’re easy to find online.)
        Cookies aren’t the only food Eddie can print. Using a special tray (I only have the cookie tray shown here in the picture), you can print edible images and sayings on other types of food, including macaroons, donuts, and even cupcakes, as long as they fit in width, height, and other specifications, specified for a particular pallet.
        The tray holds cookies or other food in place; it is drawn into the printer body by the feed mechanism, which then scans to determine if the cookie is properly placed and centered and adjusts accordingly. After the scan is complete, Eddie prints the image onto the surface of a biscuit or other treat. Eddie’s Facebook group is a great way to see what some incredible food consumers are becoming and offers a great way to get secondary support if needed.
        The review device I received from Primera Technologies was an Eddie base printer. It includes a printer, a three-color edible cartridge, and a motorized turntable with 12 round cookie trays on top. Eddie can print on other matte surfaces, but not on standard pallets. Links are also provided for downloading printer drivers and software for PC or Mac to create and/or place images on print templates.
        On the PC, the software is a stripped-down version of Seagull Scientific’s BarTender labeling utility. (Mac software is also included.) Finally, a detailed printer manual, in my case the BarTender software, is available for download. Primera also offers great personalized support within the purchase price, more on that later.
        Eddie arrived in a very large cardboard box filled with a bunch of smaller boxes. To say that it is well packaged is an understatement. Even the most clumsy delivery man probably won’t do much harm in delivering despite the heavy workload of moving him around. The presence of a second assistant will significantly reduce the amount of unpacking and assembly work.
        At the same time, my Eddie was unpacked, assembled and ready for printing in about half an hour. As mentioned earlier, Eddie is primarily a carousel-driven inkjet printer. The assembly instructions in the manual include installing the motor (for the cookie turntable) and connecting it to the connector on the back of the printer, installing the crumb tray/filter and ink cartridge (the latter is very similar to any other inkjet printer), and turning the wooden horse is placed on the top of the turning circle.
        The carousel holds up to 12 cookies, but you can print fewer cookies at a time if you wish. This carousel holds 2.5″ to 3.85″ diameter round cookies, and you can also use it with other edible shapes such as square and triangular cookies.
        By removing the small triangular spacers on the turntable, you can print other food shapes as well as round cookies from 3.5″ to 4.375″ in diameter and up to 2″ high. Third parties may offer special trays for other media and sizes. The Primera\u2019 documentation lists some of the food items that Eddie can print if the tray fits: sugar cookies, macaroons, graham crackers, marshmallows, cake pops, icing cookies of any shape, white chocolate covered cookies, and more.
        A quick look at Eddie’s Facebook group page will give you a good idea of ​​some of the creative cookies users are creating. A smooth or matte cookie surface was a must for our samples, but enterprising Eddie users printed on a rougher surface. Everything is experimental.
        Once Eddie is built, it’s time to connect the interface and install the BarTender drivers and software. You can connect the printer via a direct wired USB, Wi-Fi, or Ethernet connection; the last method is the method I use. When I ran the setup utility, my computer immediately detected Eddie on the network and installed the printer driver automatically.
        The next step is to install the BarTender software and this is where I am stuck. BarTender software keeps crashing during installation. I suspect this is my fault as I don’t understand what exactly is installed. BarTender, developed and documented by a third party, periodically sets the SQL version, mainly to keep track of templates and users. I have SQL installed on the system I’m trying to install BarTender on, a conflict with an existing copy of SQL may be causing the installation to fail. BarTender gives you the option to install without SQL, and once I knew it was the right way, it fixed the installation issue.
        Primera customer support is provided in real time by highly trained and experienced technicians. Despite several walkthroughs, they couldn’t get me to install it on the original PC until I figured out what was wrong with the installation. The software keeps crashing until it finishes installing. In desperation, I pulled out a fairly new laptop, enabled the remote access technology, and within minutes, I was done. Still, it’s impressive support.
        Primera provides software for the actual layout of the images that will be sent to the printer. Both graphics/compositing utilities are developed by third parties and can be downloaded from the Primera website. For Mac users, BeLight Software’s Swift Publisher is provided. For PC, this is the already mentioned BarTender. These two packs were originally designed to print on round labels or CD/DVD surfaces, not cookies. However, BarTender is easy to use once installed.
        You can also use almost any graphics software that can create an image that matches the cookie/edible shape you are using. In addition to BarTender, I’ve also used Canva and Adobe Photoshop Elements to print cookies and had no issues matching the space format and successfully printing the cookies. The only consideration is the format of the images used. In my tests, I used PNG images, which are available for free download from several sites. I also used a JPG image that was resized and cropped in Photoshop Elements, saved as a PNG, and printed using Photoshop Elements and BarTender. If you feel comfortable using an image editor, you shouldn’t have any problems.
        Even if you don’t have much experience in this area, well-written and illustrated guides and online tutorials will make printing your first cookie an easy task. And a selection of video tutorials can be downloaded. They will help you set up the printer, maintain it, and print cookies using BarTender. And if that’s not enough, Primera offers hour-long face-to-face training sessions. If you are a little unsure about your ability to use the printer and software, I recommend taking the time to read these manuals.