Canon Pixma Pro 1 Ink and refill options.

[Samuel Laycock]

Hello folks, a quick search brought nothing up. Can anyone suggest how I get round paying over the two hundred pounds for new Canon cartridges please. I have seen 12 pint bottles of inks available from the USA, they would cost about sixty pounds more than one bank of new Canon cartridges. Seems like a no brainer really but im affraid of loss of quality, voiding my 4 yr warranty with Canon and suffering blockages etc. I had enquired about a chip resetter only to be told that thees nothing available for the Pro 1 but then thankfully directed here. Please help, I dont print every day, can go a month without printing a sheet, but then I'll get a wedding or something and I'll need to print 50 - 100 photos. I use quality Fotospeed papers and have the papers profiled.

Kind regards, Sam.

 

[berttheghost]

Hello folks, a quick search brought nothing up. Can anyone suggest how I get round paying over the two hundred pounds for new Canon cartridges please. I have seen 12 pint bottles of inks available from the USA, they would cost about sixty pounds more than one bank of new Canon cartridges. Seems like a no brainer really but im affraid of loss of quality, voiding my 4 yr warranty with Canon and suffering blockages etc. I had enquired about a chip resetter only to be told that thees nothing available for the Pro 1 but then thankfully directed here. Please help, I dont print every day, can go a month without printing a sheet, but then I'll get a wedding or something and I'll need to print 50 - 100 photos. I use quality Fotospeed papers and have the papers profiled.

Kind regards, Sam.

I'm obviously not the welcome wagon, so I'll suggest you start as follows.
Enter the following query in Goggle:
"pro-1" site:http://www.printerknowledge.com/
or
"pgi-29" site:http://www.printerknowledge.com/

 

[The Hat]

Hi Sam and welcome.

Now there are two ways of going about your problem, the first is to buy OEM ink for the large format Canon printers (130 ml carts) and use them to refill yourself, that way you’d save about 50% on cost, but expensive to start.

The other way is to buy your aftermarket carts in from Alibaba, which is probably your best option because you get the carts, ink and chip for the same price and the inks work very well in the Pro 1.

The problem you’ll have with the first option is that there is no way to reset the OEM chip so your machine will run a hell of a lot of cleaning cycles wasting the good ink on you, not to mention it will constantly keep annoying you with pop ups every time you try to print.

The only 3rd party ink set available for the Pro 1 comes from China, all of the other EBay sellers are a mix match of all sorts and even some of it is dye ink so be careful where you shop.

Here is a supplier that I have used and found it the only answer to good quality ink and a very manageable price, and the more you purchase the cheaper the P&P gets.

http://maetone.en.alibaba.com/produ...idge_for_Canon_Pixma_Pro_1_made_in_china.html

The Pro 1 does not suffer from any blockages or head clogs no matter how long you leave it sitting idle and will print perfectly every time you turn it on.

You’ll have no warrantee worries either if you ever have to send your machine back, once it has genuine OEM cartridges in it, no matter what ink you’ve been using, been there and done that.

Once you profile the 3rd party ink it will be hard to tell the difference with no loss of quality either but you’ll have to wait till all of the OEM ink clears from the CISS tubing before you can get an accrete profile reading..

 

[Samuel Laycock]

The other way is to buy your aftermarket carts in from Alibaba, which is probably your best option because you get the carts, ink and chip for the same price and the inks work very well in the Pro 1.

Many thanks The Hat, much appreciated, I have messaged that supplier asking about there min order and see on Ebay a listing for what looks like identical inks. I'll wait on there responce and make a decision. The aftermarket carts, could I trouble you for a link please ?

 

[The Hat]

The aftermarket carts that I was referring too above are from Maetone which has 38 ml of pigment ink in each cart and you can purchase one complete set at a time or more if you wish, that EBay ink usually have less ink in their carts (29 ml), I’ve bought two sets on two occasion from China, but now I refill my OEM’s..

 

[Samuel Laycock]

Thanks again, I'm now navagating the Alibaba site & the Maetone supplier, its all new so a bit hit n' miss, I have asked for quotes & pricing but kept getting my submition declined. Think they want to many peices for there min order. Anyhoo, I'll keep going, I've written to one of the sellers in Maetone and hope to have some sort of written responce other than 'request denied'

 

[The Hat]

Have your registered with Alibaba yet, because all of your requests for prices go through them.

Here is another site in the Nederland’s that do compatibles but I don’t think they sell to the UK, maybe if you had someone on the mainland that could help..

http://www.123inkt.nl/Inkt-cartridges/Canon/Printer-type/Canon-Pixma-serie/Pixma-Pro-1-p23413.html

 

[Smile]

Try aliexpress.com

With ICC profiles you will have true matching colors, better ink means photo longevity. But if you store your photos in albums then third party ink is OK. I myself use OCP and Inktec inks.

 

[berttheghost]

@Samuel Laycock ,
Have you had any luck with Maetone? I just received my first set of OEM PGI-29 carts and cringe with sticker shock. Believe it or not, the Canon pricing is actually competitive when compared against the corresponding Epson R3000. But still, ...

I'm very pleased with the Pro-1's print quality and want to keep it that way. My luck with Ebay ink suppliers for other printers has been uniformly bad so I'm loathe to experiment with them on the Pro-1. I would consider the price of OEM ink to be bearable if only most of the ink went for printing. I have, however come to call the contents of the PGI-29 carts 'Canon printhead cleaning fluid' to reflect its perceived primary use in my particular printer. That seemingly excessive use of ink in automatic cleaning cycles, and not the cost of the ink itself is what will force me into experimenting with 3rd party inks until I find an acceptable alternative. I'm considering getting a service manual and installing a waste ink tank in order to better understand where the ink is going.

What's your experience with ink use thus far? Do you think that most of it is going onto paper or is your experience more like mine?

 

[Samuel Laycock]

@Samuel Laycock ,
Have you had any luck with Maetone? I just received my first set of OEM PGI-29 carts and cringe with sticker shock. Believe it or not, the Canon pricing is actually competitive when compared against the corresponding Epson R3000. But still, ...

I'm very pleased with the Pro-1's print quality and want to keep it that way. My luck with Ebay ink suppliers for other printers has been uniformly bad so I'm loathe to experiment with them on the Pro-1. I would consider the price of OEM ink to be bearable if only most of the ink went for printing. I have, however come to call the contents of the PGI-29 carts 'Canon printhead cleaning fluid' to reflect its perceived primary use in my particular printer. That seemingly excessive use of ink in automatic cleaning cycles, and not the cost of the ink itself is what will force me into experimenting with 3rd party inks until I find an acceptable alternative. I'm considering getting a service manual and installing a waste ink tank in order to better understand where the ink is going.

What's your experience with ink use thus far? Do you think that most of it is going onto paper or is your experience more like mine?

Hi Bert. No luck with Maetone, there not intrested in selling just 2 or 3 sets, if I was to order a hundred units - set of 12 inks - then yes I'm sure I would have them in the air allready ! I'm going to try the link Alibaba Express .... Was on this thread somwhere I'm sure, mabie deleted .. Anyways, putting my order through now, hope I dont get nailed by customs And to be fair, I'm still on my original set that came with the unit, I'm fairly sure it gobbles up 50% of the cartrages when priming the head & filling the tubes. I have learnt though to not turn it on unless I have a decent ammount of prints to create. On each startup it just eats ink ....