Can I fill my pro-100 ink cartridges with pigment ink?

[mikling]

Buck for buck the Pro 10 is a far better buy than the Pro 1 is, because it’s cheaper, will very soon have 3rd party inks plus a redsetter and is very easy to refill, so things couldn’t get better for the Pro 10..

Hat, is the wasting of ink with the Pro-1 still as pronounced as you had reported it before even with functioning chips?

 

[pharmacist]

I suggest to convert to Epson printers instead: piezo print heads can cope with all types of inks, including dye, pigment and sublimation inks. I now use my Epson 1500W with both dye as well as pigment inkt and get beautiful results, much finer print quality compared to my previous Canon i9950 (the non-chipped predecessor of the Pro 9000) with great gamut and using less cartridges (6 versus 8). Also the waste ink can be redirected away from the printer in an external waste ink tank. Canon printers still lack this possibility to attach some type of waste ink tank reliably as on Epson printers. The Epson 1500W produces ink droplets twice as small compared to the Canon Pro-100, giving superior smooth printing gradations.

 

[The Hat]

Hat, is the wasting of ink with the Pro-1 still as pronounced as you had reported it before even with functioning chips?

Hi Mike,
Since I’ve had a full set of working chips the ink wastage has returned to normal, well normal for this machine anyway and with the use of the waste tank I can now monitor the amount it wastes, total of 485 ml in nine months..

 

[mikling]

Hi Mike,
Since I’ve had a full set of working chips the ink wastage has returned to normal, well normal for this machine anyway and with the use of the waste tank I can now monitor the amount it wastes, total of 485 ml in nine months..

I take it that when the chip is disabled, the ink wasteage situation is increased beyond normal i.e more priming cycles.

Pharmacist...there is much to smooth gradations than droplet size. I can assure you of that. The notion that small droplet size = better image quality is overly simplistic perhaps not relevant as we shall see. The Canon desktop model MG5420 ( between $59 and $79http://www.canon.ca/inetCA/products?m=gp&pid=20434#_030 ) can go down to 1pl that is even smaller than the 1500W. Does it produce superior images to the Pro-100? No. yet the droplet size on the Pro-100 is three times larger.

The i9900 series was distinctly grainy compared to newer printers. The Pro9000 using the same printhead as the i9950 produced superior smoother (less grain) images than the i9900. ( One reason, I moved from the i9900 to the 9000 at the time) But the identical printhead was used in both printers!

In the end, it is what the eye sees and after a certain point in droplet size is reached other aspects take precedent. For newer printers, droplet sizes are all small enough and other aspects too complicated for a salesperson to relate to the consumer/layperson takes precedent.

Now let's take a look at the following printer droplet sizes
Pro-1 (http://www.canon.ca/inetCA/products?m=gp&pid=12531#_030) 4pl ....
Pro-10 (http://www.canon.ca/inetCA/products?m=gp&pid=18769#_030) 4pl
Pro-100 ( http://www.canon.ca/inetCA/products?m=gp&pid=18783#_030) 3pl
Smallest droplet size for the Epson R3000 and Pro3880 is 2 and 3.5pl respectively. The 1500W is 1.5pl.

The minimum droplet size of 1.5pl was first introduced on the Epson R260 (2007?)....I have had over 6 of those over the years and up to 9 if you include the AIO printers based on it. 6 of those printers died by delamination of the piezo head causing the black ink to leak into the yellow channel. (Printhead design/mfg. defect) 2 died with erratic cartridge recognition issues (electronic) and 1 died from mechanical breakdown.

I still currently have an Artisan 50, 730,R1800, R3000,Pro3880...some are hibernating though. I have an R2400 with me over the weekend or so.
LOL, I still refused to dispose of my R200..whose printhead died and shows a clogged pattern on Magenta.....spent hours to conclude that it is an electrical problem not clog. I use it to feed and print a strip of black for a certain operation now.

So let me assure you this is not an anti Epson thing but more that droplet size is way overrated.

 

[The Hat]

I take it that when the chip is disabled, the ink wasteage situation is increased beyond normal i.e more priming cycles.

Yes many times, punishment for not using OEM I suppose..

 

[mikling]

Pharmacist

keep your eye on this site.

http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com/news.html

The explanation of why the photo greys are beneficial will be explained I hope in part two.

This is my personal review of the Pro-100. http://www.precisioncolors.com/Pro-100.html

As with all reviews you can agree or disagree but the aspects of why I like the Pro-100 appears to be shared by much higher authorities than myself like the site above...and reporting it 10 months or so later than my initial review.

Again it's incredibly amazing that such an excellent printer can be in the hands of some for $99 ($40 for the lucky ones).