Fancierstudio Power 15 x 15 Heat Press Review

The Fancierstudio Power Heat Press is a simple yet effective and consistent heat press. With a large temperature range, an extremely easy-to-use interface, and a strong, sturdy aluminum build, the Fancierstudio Power Heat Press justifies its place as one of the best selling heat presses on Amazon. With it’s amazing quality, it’s no wonder that the Fancierstudio Power Heat Press has over 7,500 reviews, all praising the high quality, and consistency of the heat press. The Fancierstudio Power Heat Press is very much an “as advertised” product; every feature described by Fancierstudio for their 15” x 15” heat press is absolutely met by their product. At a price of $219.99 as of February, 2022, you really can’t go wrong with the Fancierstudio Power Heat Press!

An Overview of the Fancierstudio Power Heat Press

In this Fancierstudio Power Heat Press Review, we’ll be investigating the ins and outs of this wonderful heat press. This compact heat press won’t take up too much space, while offering you a reliable level of quality that you can always come back to. With a diverse set of features, a quality build, and a simple-to-use process, you can’t go wrong with this 15” x 15” heat press. 

While we think the world of the Fancierstudio 15×15 Power Heat Press, the heat press product line from Tusy is even more impressive, for only about 20% more cost. If the Fancierstudio product isn’t right for you, make sure to check out the Tusy. If you are looking for heavy duty models, then consider the HPN 15×15 swing away or the HPN 16×20 heat press.

Fancierstudio Heat Press 15” x 15” Features

• 1,800 Watt heating element, making your heat press warm-up to your desired temperature extremely quickly!
• A large, 0-699 °F temperature range allowing you to press with a diverse set of materials
• A super wide, 0-999 second timer range, enabling you the options to set-up and test any timer settings you wish
• Precise electronic time and heat control, so that you can dial in your preferred settings every press
• Pressure control knob, so you can take quickly and easily adjust your pressure settings manually
• Silicone-gel base board, giving you a heat protective and supportive material that won’t impact your designs or print materials

What’s comes in the box?

• Fancierstudio Power Heat Press 15” x 15” compact heat press
• Silicone-gel base body to provide a heat protective and supportive material for your presses

How to use the Fancierstudio Power Heat Press?

If you’ve never used a heat press for dye-sublimation printing before, you should follow along with this portion of our review. If you already know how to use a heat press, then you should be fine skipping this section. 

Why do we use a heat press?

In dye-sublimation, our goal is to use a combination of heat and pressure to transfer our designs from a specially coated paper to our preferred material. The water based sublimation ink is able to bond with the polymer molecules present in fabrics and materials like polyester, which permanently dyes the material. This dying process can give you a high fidelity, quality, and sustainable transfer that can last through many wash cycles. The heat press is what gives us the heat and pressure that we need to properly transfer our dyes onto the desired materials. 

Before you get started using your heat press, you’ll need to come up with and print the design you are looking to transfer. You can check out some of our reviews on the printers we recommend for dye-sublimation printing here. Once you have both your design and your transfer material, you’ll be ready to go with your heat press.

Getting the settings dialed in

Depending on who you’ve used to supply your transfer materials, you may or may not have been provided with recommended Fancierstudio heat press settings.

If you are using polyester fabrics that you’ve gotten from a department store, like socks or T-Shirts from places like Amazon, Wal-Mart, or Target, then you likely won’t receive any specified settings for your transfer. You can refer to the online forums to see if anyone has recommended settings for the specific transfer materials you are using. If you aren’t able to find any recommended settings, you may need to test different settings for yourself. Generally, you’ll want to use a temperature between 350-400 °F with a time between 30-60 seconds. Test within these general ranges, and figure out what settings give you the highest quality transfer.

If you are supplying transfer materials from an online supplier, like Coastal Business or Alibaba, you are more likely to receive recommended settings for your transfer. Many suppliers give you these recommended settings so that you have the best experience with their products, and to make sure that you keep coming back to them. I’d highly recommend trying their preferred settings at first, but don’t feel afraid to try some other settings. There may be some differences with your heat press, with the environment in which you are pressing, or many other things that can lead to differences in the quality of your print. On the chance you don’t receive recommended settings from your supplier, I’d suggest exploring with the general temperature range of 350-400 °F and a time range of 30-60 seconds to find what gives you the best results.

Setting everything up

Now that you have a targeted temperature and timer range for your transfer, you can get started with your press. Go ahead and plug-in your temperature and flip the on-switch. You’ll notice that there are two small LCD screens on the face of your press. These correspond to your temperature and timer settings. You can use the buttons underneath to set these settings.

You can press either the temperature or time button respectively to enter in your setting. Using the Up/Down arrows, you can dial in until you get to whatever setting you prefer. This input control is incredibly easy to understand and very intuitive, you should have no issues dialing in these settings. 

Pressure, pushing down on me!

The last setting you need to set-up is the pressure knob. Twist the pressure knob clockwise to increase the pressure, and counter-clockwise to decrease the pressure. There is no quantitative feedback for your pressure settings, so you’ll have to setup this part more by feel. You can do this in a couple of different ways.

The first would be to test different settings. Do a press with a low level of pressure, and progressively increase the pressure until you get to an ideal pressure for your transfer. 

The alternative option is to increase your pressure until you can no longer pull a sheet of paper from underneath it. Dial in your pressure, and lock the heat press in the closed position with a sheet of paper in the press area. If you can easily pull the paper out, then you should increase your pressure. If you’re paper tears, then you’ll want to decrease your pressure. You should be able to pull out the sheet of paper without tearing it, but it shouldn’t be able to easily slide out. 

Dialing in your pressure can be hard. One pro-tip I can give you is to mark your pressure-knob. This way, you’ll be able to measure just how much you’ve turned your pressure knob. I marked my pressure knob using a small piece of masking tape. I placed the tape on the pressure knob, and now I can read my pressure knob almost like a clock!

Now we can actually press

Now that you have all of your settings dialed in, you can actually transfer your materials. 

Even though the Fancierstudio Power Heat Press comes with a silicone-gel base, you’ll still want to place a sheet of protective material over the base to further protect your heat press. I’d recommend using either kraft paper or a Teflon sheet. The reason we do this is to extend the life of our heat press. If we were to transfer without a protective sheet on the base of our heat press, we may run into issues with ink transferring onto our base, potentially ruining future presses. 

On top of the protective Teflon or kraft sheet, you’ll place your transfer materials. You’ll want to make sure there are no creases or wrinkles in your transfer materials. If there are creases or wrinkles, you may negatively impact your transfer. You’ll also want to make sure that your transfer materials are dry. Small amounts of water can vaporize when pressed, and this can push/move the ink during the transfer process. You can quickly dry your material, while removing some wrinkles and creases by pressing your transfer material for about 30 seconds without any designs or sublimation ink on the material. 

Finally you’ll place your designs on top of your material. You may want to place another protective sheet on top of your design to further protect your heat press, however it is much less necessary.

How does the Fancierstudio Power Heat Press compare to other heat presses?

There is certainly no shortage in heat press suppliers or variations, but how does the Fancierstudio Power Heat Press compare to other suppliers and other designs?

Adjust-ability

Well, quite favorably! The Fancierstudio Power Heat Press has a wide temperature and timer range that enable you to work with a variety of materials. You won’t be too restricted when it comes to testing new materials, inks, or paper for your sublimation business. The Fancierstudio Power Heat Press has the capability of giving you the heat, time, and pressure to try a wide range of transfers.

Space Saving

The Fancierstudio Power Heat Press is also a clam-shell heat press. This means that the heat platen of the heat press opens in an upward direction. When compared with other designs, like swing-away arms, the clam-shell design is very nice for saving space. Since it opens upwards, the Fancierstudio Power Heat Press doesn’t take up as much space as alternative, swing-away arm heat presses. This can be a huge advantage if you are space challenged, and need a heat press that won’t take up too much space. 

Quality Build

The Fancierstudio Power Heat Press has also been built with high quality aluminum materials. This gives it a very sturdy and long-lasting design, without drastically increasing the weight. You won’t have to worry about your heat press breaking underneath it’s pressure, since it’s been reliably built with high quality and sturdy materials. 

What’s the catch?

The Fancierstudio Power Heat Press has a lot going well for it, but that doesn’t mean everything is fine and dandy! There are some limitations when it comes to this particular heat press, and you should be aware of these things before purchasing.

A limited press area

The Fancierstudio Power Heat Press comes with a 15” x 15” platen. This can be particularly restrictive when it comes to pressing a wide range of transfer designs. While it may be fine for smaller designs, if you are looking to do all-over-printing or if you are looking to transfer large designs onto T-shirts or sweatshirts, you’ll be very limited. Before you get the Fancierstudio Power Heat Press, you may want to make yourself aware that you won’t be able to press anything larger than the 15” x 15” heat platen. 

Alternative Brand: Tusy

Tusy offers a wider assortment of presses, with more features, for about 20% more in cost. If the price difference doesn’t deter you, check out our detailed review of the entire Tusy product line here.

Alternate Brand: Heat Press Nation

The 15×15 8 in 1 multifunction from Heat Press Nation is probably the industry leader in smaller heat presses as of February, 2023.

How do consumers generally feel about Fancierstudio Power Heat Press?

The Fancierstudio Power Heat Press is one of the best selling and highest reviewed heat presses available on Amazon. With a 4.4 star rating on over 900 reviews, you can rest assured that consumers general agree with this favorable Fancierstudio Power Heat Press review.

Some issues were raised with the electronics of the heat press by reviewers. Specifically, people would occasionally have issues with the electronics on the heat press. Occasionally, the electronics would short or burn-out when heating up, causing their heat press to become unusable. 

Note that if you end up having catastrophic issues with your heat press, you’ll be protected by Fancierstudio and Amazon’s reliable customer service!

Despite the occasional issues people seem to have, the majority of purchasers love their heat press, and rate it very well!

Pros

• A large, 0-699 °F temperature range enabling you to work with an equally large range of materials
• An accurate, wide 0-999 second timer range to explore different options for your press timings
• Easily adjustable pressure knob to quickly and manually dial in your preferred pressure settings for every press
• Sturdy aluminum body to give you a high quality heat press that can withstand the test of time
• Easy-to-use LCD electronic interface to quickly dial in your settings for every press
• Silicon-gel base to help protect both your heat press and your transfers 

Cons

• Limited Press Area, potentially restricting what you can transfer

Our final thoughts on the Fancierstudio Power Heat Press

In this Fancierstudio Power Heat Press review, we’ve favorable compared the heat press to its competitors. This is because the Fancierstudio Power Heat Press is one of the best options around! The Fancierstudio Power Heat Press has a temperature and timer range that will allow you to experiment with just about any material you desire. The sturdy aluminum body will make sure that your heat press lasts for as long as you need. An easy-to-use interface means that just about anyone can get started with this heat press!
The only drawback to this heat press is the limited press area. So long as you aren’t looking to transfer designs that exceed the 15” x 15” heat platen, you won’t have any issues with your transfers. The Fancierstudio Power Heat Press is the perfect entry-level heat press to get for your dye-sublimation business. Whether you are a newcomer to the industry, or are an experienced veteran, you’ll be satisfied with this heat press.