Canon Pixma Pro 1 Ink and refill options.

[The Hat]

Hi Samuel,

That’s great news and you now have your printer working again, but it’s not good in that the new compatibles chips should have worked if installed altogether and not given any errors, it would be nice to know what’s causing this problem.

How old is your machine, and what firmware is it currently using, have you upgraded the firmware or did the previous owner do it, where did you get the compatibles from, which site and from which company. ?

You’ll have to get onto the seller of these cartridges and get replacement cartridges or better still a complete refund because there’s no use in them sending you new cartridges if the chips have been superseded and are not been recognised.

Sooner or later you’re also going to have to tackle the waste ink problem, that 1701 error tells you it’s over 80% full, that's going to be a huge headache for you, and so are you ready for this. !

Option 1. You’ll have to send your big 70 lb machine to a service centre for them to replace the waste ink cartridge, there’s the cost of courier to and from, replacement parts and labour costs, but it doesn’t stop there because you’ll need to have at least 50% full OEM ink cartridges for them to carry out this service and system check.

Otherwise they’ll charge you for a full new set of cartridges and they have other charges and penalties and restrictions if they find you’re not using OEM cartridges.

The Pro 1 printer is really a great printer to own but if you tie yourself down to using only Canon products then it gets very expensive to operate unless you’re selling all your prints.

Option 2. You can remover the top cover and a few other parts and install an external waste in tank yourself then reset the waste ink counter to zero and never be bother with that problem again, this is a much cheaper option but this too can have consequences if not done precisely..

 

[Samuel Laycock]

Printer is less than 6 months old. Bought new. Firmware ... Just looking now. Cant print test page because im getting 16 flashes - outta ink - on the error button. So cannot see the firmware version. I see I am supposed to use the "PRINTER UPDATE UTILITY" but after an hour looking I see no d-loads for that ... The site i used was :
PGI 29 Ink for CANON Printer , Ink Cartridge for Canon PGI 29 with Chip for 1 year guarantee with ISO9001 for PIXMA PRO 1-in Ink Cartridges from Computer & Office on Aliexpress.com | Alibaba Group
If its over 80% full and will need sending for service, I do have a 4 yr guarantee with the unit. Will they know i have had none Canon inks in it and if so will I then be charged ?

Just called Canon support, it voids my 4 yr warranty using compatable inks. So my unit is no longer under warranty. With hindsight, spending more and buying canon would of saved me a hell of allot more than it will now cost me to fix this ......

 

[The Hat]

'Samuel Laycock, For a 6 month old printer that is extremely quick to fill a waste ink cartridge ! and on some of the newer Pro model printers the firmware version is printed at the bottom of the nozzle check otherwise you have to print a service mode sheet to get it.

The site you purchased from seems to have all the right things covered, so I’d retry those carts again to make sure, use the complete set this time, don't mix with OEM's.

Now your 4 year guarantee only covers the normal wear and tear of printer parts and usually excludes replacement ink and waste cartridges but may cover the labour costs and the service centre are correct about compatible cartridges so if you must send your printer to them don’t have any installed. ! !

The Pro 1 printer is really a great printer to own but if you tie yourself down to using only Canon products then it gets very expensive to operate unless you’re selling all your prints.

Your printer is still covered under the warrantee contrary to what was said in the telephone conversation, because they have no way of proving you were using non OEM inks so stop worrying about that, they told you a big fat lie, it’s just scare mongering..

Don’t be afraid or put off using 3rd party inks you will have to profile them to get the best from the printer and to be as close to OEM ink as possible, that’s the only down side with using 3rd party inks, but if you use OEM ink with non OEM paper then you’d still have to profile anyway, so it can be a win win situation all round..

 

[Samuel Laycock]

I'm going to try replacing 1 ink at a time to see if it's just one cartridge that's at fault. I did replace 10 inks in one go. Maybe that error was a consequence of faulty chips ? I did bring up your point while on the phone to the service ctr. I have printed less than 6 a3+ and no more than 20 7' 5" and a handful of a4"s on the printer. I have maybe started the printer a dozen times to do that work and was told maintenance is using ink on each switch on. Those cartridges were full on purchase and 6 months later after the above usage all but 2 are empty. The 2 that are still in use have little ink left in them.... That doesn't feel right....

 

[The Hat]

Replacing one cart at a time just might find the duff chip but it will use some ink during this process, when the printer does a maintenance clean it can use 2 to 3 ml of ink from each cartridge.

Mostly when you hear it revving up it’s not using any ink at all, it has to equalise the pressure in all of the tanks so that they are all equal, maintenance is carried out in real time rather than how many times you turn on the printer, but all new Pro 1 printers will do a mandatory system flush after 45 days of ownership.

For instance if for some reason your machine malfunctioned and dumped all of the usable ink that’s in the cartridges into the waste ink cartridge that would only equate to about 25% full and not 80%, the volume of a set of cartridges = 480 ml total but not all of that ink can be used.

Are you sure that there is nothing else wrong with your printer because you may have a lemon, or a demo model or one that was sent for repair and then sold as new again, maintenance cartridges cant fill up with just one set of cartridges used.
I have refilled all of my cartridges at least 12 time and only lost 1100 ml of ink in all that time, my printer is 3 ½ years old and my maintenance cartridge remains permanently at 43% full..

 

[Samuel Laycock]

I bought it from Calmunet in Manchester off the shelf so to speak. Paid cash, put it in the boot, drove home. Opened it and found the polystyrene broken on the larger pieces. It didn't flag to much concern up as the printer was properly wrapped with the expected seals / tape etc. Could it be that a screwed chip flagged up a false error with the excess tank.... ? Anyhoo I just bought a full set of canon inks delivered tomorrow for bang on 2ton. Broke my heart but needs must. Gotta lotta prints to create in the morning !

 

[The Hat]

Hi Samuel, maybe a complete reset would solve your waste ink problem but you’d have to send it back to a Service Centre either ways because you can’t ignore that warning false or not, a duff or failed chip wouldn’t cause that sort of error.

I would advise against using a courier service because if the printer is not kept flat during transit the waste ink will spill out everywhere and destroy the printer, which is not covered under warrantee for that sort of situation.

Run all your prints first then think about servicing later but don’t leave it too long because the waste ink can cause one hell of a mess if it gets out, good luck with you prints..

 

[Samuel Laycock]

I will have the engineer come to me. I guess I just wait for a full tank message and then call them out. I will try using the inks again, i sealed the full compatables with tape and boxed them up for future use. As soon as i run out of an ink I'll replace with a compatable tank and see how i get on. I just diddnt want to be trouble shooting the compatables with this job looming. The prints ive had off it topday have been outstanding, shot through the Nikon D800 & 28-70 2.8 Nikkor. Best prints I've ever created, very happy indeed ! I do appreciate all your help The Hat, would of still been sat here with a locked printer if it wasnt for yourself, will raise a glass of the dark stuff to ya later my good man, many thanks

 

[Alastair]

Hi all,
Same story as Samuel. I bought the PRO-1 around April this year from Calumet Glasgow. It was a sealed box and I had no issues with the packaging or the printer. As I am an amateur and my full time job took me away for weeks at a time, the printer was very lightly used, until today I was operating on the original OEM carts.
However, I was very aware that I needed to purchase replacements and opted to purchase five sets (their minimum) of compatibles from Tatrix International China - as advertised on Alibaba.
These arrived today - I was impressed by both the service I received and the rapid delivery. So, to cut to the chase, I changed the full set this afternoon and immediately ran into problems. First, one cart wasn't recognised. This required removal and re-seating. At this point everything looked good, the printer utility was reporting full carts and I set up my first test print, a letter sized print. This was successful, but when I tried another print I had the dreaded B500 error as reported by Samuel. Nothing I tried would reset the error and access to the cartridges was (and is) mechanically locked.
Thanks 'The Hat' for the prior posts on how to open the cart compartment to recover my printer (I hope) - that will be my task for tomorrow. But did we ever resolve the root cause? I too noticed the downward pointing spigot and the same moulding differences from the originals- are these 'compatibles' actually from the same manufacturer I wonder? My carts don't have any lights - a minor niggle operationally but it could be a pain when diagnosing problems, especially as the print utility on my Mac doesn't report the ink levels. Luckily I also have a windows laptop that does, so no big deal for myself.
I am Interested to hear if there is any follow up on the compatibility issue and what the outcome was.
Thanks for this excellent forum ... Regards, Alastair

 

[Alastair]

Hi all,
A quick update. I used the work instructions from 'the Hat' to get into the ink carts. It was straightforward enough, albeit I was surprised that the whole panel had to be moved aside with various mechanical bits and wires still connected to gain access.
While replacing the carts one at a time with the OEM's I noticed than one OEM cart would not enter the slot vacated by the compatible. ( I should explain that with the panels removed there is no visual guide as to what goes where, so I was using the one taken out as the reference for replacing with the corresponding OEM cart). When one of the grey OEM's did not slide home I realised it was the wrong cart for the slot. After replacing all 12, the thought came to me that perhaps the compatibles are lacking the physical 'keying' of the OEM's that prevents putting the wrong cartridge into a slot. Perhaps this is the answer, two carts in the wrong place would confuse the printer when reading their respective chips? I will check this hypothesis in due time, for now I have a fully working printer again and a full set of OEM inks, so further testing will have to wait for now.
Finally, I think Samuel was misreading the 'flashing lights' error codes. See the link here.
http://ugp01.c-ij.com/ij/webmanual/Manual/M/PRO-1 v1-1 series/EN/UG/UG_Trouble0300.html
The ink pad error code is a repeating sequence of eight flashes of the alarm light while the power light flashes continuously. In my case I was seeing both lights flashing alternatively as shown in the lower section of the link. So I believe the ink pad error was a red herring.
Regards ... Alastair