Bjc 5500 used printer to buy

[Saphire]

Hi. I'm thinking to buy this used printer for large format prints A2 format. Seller says that it comes with new heads for black and white printing and color printing. He also says that the had is new. So my question is does that mean the head is changed every time when bci 21 ink changed? Also is this printer have some issues? It cost only 150$.

 

[PeterBJ]

The BCI-21 and the very similar BCI-24 cartridges are sponge only cartridges. They are unchipped and can be drip filled from the ink outlet. Even if those cartridges come in two types, a black and a tricolour, they are a separate from the print head. I think the cartridge capacity is 10-15 ml for each cartridge, meaning maybe 3x5ml for the colour cartridge. I think this design is a predecessor to the well known separate print head and single ink tank cartridges of today.

I checked Canon Europe website.The printer is very old and it seems Canon offers no drivers for it, not even for Win 2k or Win ME. Also see this thread. If you can find no driver for the printer it is useless in my opinion, and if the print head fails I think a new one is nowhere to be found. Maybe this museum piece is best left alone?

 

[Saphire]

Here is some info from one seling from e-bay for 1200$! Also here is price of new head with colors included. On info says that driver will automaticly install for windows platform. I will talk to seller and i will see what he say about instaling drivers...

 

[PeterBJ]

Maybe the seller is right and the printer will work with new Windows versions? I don't know what "Headshell" means but maybe it is both the print head and the colour and the black cartridge?. Maybe this Amazon offer also is print head plus cartridges, it looks to be a better offer.

These specs list supported operating systems, notice that DOS is one of them, meaning the printer is maybe 20 years old. So what condition is the printer in? This was before the days of USB and the specs only list parallel interface. A USB to parallel port converter cable might work, very few if any newer computers have parallel ports.

If you buy this printer please report how the Windows install was and if the printer works well.

 

[The Hat]

@Saphire, You should ask yourself why does the seller want to get rid of his printer, if it’s a good working printer then there would be no reason too, and as @PeterBJ pointed out, it may not function on a modern Computer.

I would give this one a miss and save yourself a lot of bother, it might be a great printer with its built-in cartridge/head, but if you can’t get it to work on your computer then it’s useless to you.

Have you considered how much it will cost you in cartridges/inks ?...

 

[Saphire]

I have paralell port on computer, and on working computer I still use winxp. Also I Have a dual boot with linux distribution. On linux I have working i865 perfectly but with i9950 i have some problems (can't print on A3, can't print high quality). I will use, if I bought bjc 5500 only for printing on A2 format. So that will not be so usually. I think there will be some way to get on function that printer somehow it will be worth the effort if, on finish I get A2 printout.

About inks I saw that are very cheap on ebay and from local stores. And there is no chip.

 

[PeterBJ]

I may be wrong but IIRC when this family of printers were popular the retail shops sold both the ink cartridges and print heads.The print head and cartridges were also used in the more popular A4 model BJC-4300. This suggests to me that Canon print heads back then were shorter lived than today. If you buy the printer it might be a good idea to buy the print heads and cartridges from Amazon, if they are still available. But it looks to me like you really want this printer, so I did a little googling.

I found a Win 9xME driver here, and it got a clean bill of health from Virustotal. A driver claiming to support Windows versions XP, Vista, 7, 8, 8.1 and 10 is found here. 1 out of 54 Virustotal scans found malware, probably a false positive. I found no free downloads of a service manual, but you can buy a service manual + parts catalog for 10$ here. I found no user manual.

Sometimes you can find compatible BCI-21 cartridges very cheaply. for instance see this from a Danish dealer. DKK 7 is a little less than one Euro.

 

[Saphire]

Good info, thanks a lot. Now I don't see any reason to not a buy a printer. Again thanks for great information's and links explanation. If i bought printer I will post impressions.

 

[Saphire]

Today printer come. And everything is all right. I use driver for win7 recomanded by PeterBJ and works great on win7 on one old laptop with lpt port
Printer come with old (bc20)head in it and one new bc20 and one new bci21 color

I put some ink on old head because is blinking on printer display.
These is result of printing with bc20 on a3.

 

[PeterBJ]

Congratulations! It looks like the printer is OK . I just checked the Amazon offer again, and now there is only one one print head with colour and black cartridges in storage. I recommend that you order this immediately. These print heads might be scarce, at least at a reasonable price.