Canon printers and CIS kits - Enough!

[websnail]

After what now has to be, around 2 years I've finally decided to turn in my badge as far as the Canon kits go... I've spent countless hours, days, weeks and months banging my head against this brick wall and if there's one thing I've discovered along the way it's that the printers are inconsistent as hell.

Doubtless the research I've done has indicated the level of commitment I've had to trying to figure out what makes the printers tick but I've finally had enough after a brand new printhead with a kit that has been developed using every lesson I've learned started the Magenta banding routine all over again, less than 2 weeks after showing a perfect print pattern and no traces of any preceding issues..

I think, in fairness the fact that I'm spending an inordinate amount of time trying to defend the use of CIS's in a number of schools whilst regularly trying to keep them running has in part forced the issue with the other bit being that the HP officejet printers are now so much more reliable when properly setup. The lessons there were a lot less painful and whilst the issue of bloody awful printer drivers leave me wondering if I'm trading one frying pan for another I'm just about worn out.


I shouldn't wonder that over the next 6 months I'll return to the problem and give it "one more shot" but I think it's time to put my energies back into something else that'll work consistently, won't suffer from cr*p manufacturing (namely the printheads!) and won't drive me to drink either.

It's been one hell of a long day..



EDIT: Ok... that felt good.. I've been wanting to vent about these ruddy printers for a LONG time... What I can't understand is this bloody Magenta issue... If I could just get my head around that I'd be happy.. Something tells me I'm not going to be able to sleep properly until I find out what is causing it... I just wish the printers could be consistent!

I think what I've decided is that I'll not be buying any more Canon printers or looking at their features further until I tame the printers I already have (erm.. That'd be about 12+ :blush and as far as maintained kits in schools, I'm switching to the K5400 and L7680 from here on in.. Much easier to maintain.

 

[mikling]

websnail,

I just wonder about how the other persons with CISS systems for Canon are doing on a long term basis?

Given the care and experience you've had with these, and still not succeeding, makes me really wonder how others will fare.

 

[pharmacist]

Websnail and Mikling,

I can tell you about a CISS-system I have selled to a friend of mine in a Canon IX-4000 printer: the so called silicon tubing system is suffering from material fatigue and now I have to strenghten the tubing system with tape to prevent it being crashed by the printhead carriage. It has become so soft like jelly and it is very difficult to support the tubing now and printing A3 has become difficult without any danger of the carriage being stucked to standstill by the tubing.

 

[websnail]

@ Mikling... I have to admit I'm wondering how other CIS manufacturers are working with these long term too.. I note that MIS have stopped creating any new kits beyond the existing ones they had and those remaining tend to be the cheap clone kits or those using the pressure balanced kits.

Personally I'm starting to think that the Canon printers "suffer" from a few constraints
1. The whole printhead <-> cartridge interface is deliberately sensitive to any imbalance and any adaptations affect the ink flow
2. The inks each have different properties which further complicate things
3. Throw in cloggation issues in the sponge and it gets more interesting.
4. Oh and don't forget good old air buffers, tube flex and air pressure changes...

One thing I've never looked at properly and pharmacist has hinted at it a little is the effect of the tube diameter and materials themselves... I have working kits with 1mm ID (inner diameter) and others with 2mm ID... but with others setup the exact same way that don't work... Weird doesn't cover it.


Overall though I'm reaching the conclusion that I need to start completely from scratch and try to figure out how to nullify as many of the pressure change effects that exist in a CIS and I suspect that may mean forgetting completely about the printer and going back to liquid dynamics and engineering basics. Whether I'll find the time or even the money required I'm not sure but knowledge is never wasted so who knows

 

[websnail]

... and of course it was inevitable that I would return to the fray once more when I had no time to do so and thus find myself locating answers to questions I'd already asked and thought answered.


Anyhoo... I purchased a bunch of Rihac kits for the iP4500/4300 and iP4200/MP500 because I have a bunch of these in 3 schools and they have been working reasonably well until recently. All sorts of issues causing grief so I figured "Sam's doing ok, people seem to think they work.. why not". So Sam kindly charged me a fortune in postage with some lame excuse about it being from Australia... I mean, c'mon, do I look that stupi..

...Oh ok.. Anyway.. joking aside they arrived today and I need to print a load of wedding thankyou cards so I've just gone through the process of filling, priming and fitting one of the kits to the iP4500 that I did have working at one point but which started having feed issues.


Aside: Martin discovers he's a complete moron!
As I'm pulling out the kit I built for the iP4500 and emptying the ink from that into the new reservoirs I find out why the ink wasn't flowing down the tubes properly. Turns out the old tubes from an Ink Republic kit, that I'd used as dip tubes in the reservoir bottles, had basically all but disconnected from the barbed fitting. Net result, air had been getting in and ink started flowing in all the wrong directions. Basic frippin' stuff and I missed it..


Anyhoo, this kit from Rihac is actually rather well put together. I'm going to write a proper review on continuousink.info because I've been duplicating info left right and centre and it's about time I actually put some new content on the site *blush* but in a nutshell I have to say I'm rather impressed. Not bad at all... even with $120 postage (well ok, it was for about 8 kits!)...

 

[canonfodder]

Websnail,
Since your Rihac kit is surely a constant pressure system, you should try elevating the ink bottles to a height that keeps the working ink level up near the print head bottom. Perhaps Rihac suggests something like that in the instructions, but I didn't see anything on their website.

I've been running my constant ink-level system that way for quite some time now with no flow or air leakage problems. I have never done any augmenting or replacement of the original seals at the printhead inputs. Perhaps I just lucked out with a good iP4200.

 

[websnail]

Websnail,
Since your Rihac kit is surely a constant pressure system, you should try elevating the ink bottles to a height that keeps the working ink level up near the print head bottom. Perhaps Rihac suggests something like that in the instructions, but I didn't see anything on their website.

As it goes their instructions are to put the reservoirs at the same level as the printer but they do have the very slim grommets to help attenuate any leaks. My guess would be that suggesting elevation runs the risk of the average joe blogs user putting them above the printhead level and then suffering for it so elevation is left out.

I've been running my constant ink-level system that way for quite some time now with no flow or air leakage problems. I have never done any augmenting or replacement of the original seals at the printhead inputs. Perhaps I just lucked out with a good iP4200.

I'm going with the vanilla kit and instructions for now to see how well it works but I'm already considering ways to tweak it... Just can't get that out of my system it seems!

 

[canonfodder]

Websnail,

Another question about the Rihac CIS instructions.

Do they tell you clearly how to reset the ink level in the external bottles when you have done a refill, or to start with? It appears to me that some special trick would be needed due to the double row style of the bottles. (Or have I looked at the wrong pictures?)

Since the air management system doesn't have much cross-section in the internal air column relative to the main bottle cross-section, you might want to have a look at what happens to the "constant" ink level when you experience a significant barometric pressure change in your locality.

Unless you received a significant quantity discount on your purchase from Rihac, they seem to have a really high price, IMHO.

 

[websnail]

Another question about the Rihac CIS instructions.

Do they tell you clearly how to reset the ink level in the external bottles when you have done a refill, or to start with? It appears to me that some special trick would be needed due to the double row style of the bottles. (Or have I looked at the wrong pictures?)

I think you're referring to the need to tip the reservoirs over to reset the air balance part on some kits yes?

In the Rihac's the air balance area doesn't use that at all.. Instead you refill by: removing the air filter and then plugging in the "travel plug" as it's called. You then open up the bung to the main reservoir part and refill as normal (I've learned to use a syringe as it's just less messy). Then re-insert the bung to the main reservoir and swap the travel plug with the air filter again.

In terms of re-priming, the approach used is to vacuum fill using a custom grommet on a 10ml syringe (the PGI5BK has a further grommet to make this possible). It's a bit messy but it works quite well.

Since the air management system doesn't have much cross-section in the internal air column relative to the main bottle cross-section, you might want to have a look at what happens to the "constant" ink level when you experience a significant barometric pressure change in your locality.

I'll be keeping an eye...

Unless you received a significant quantity discount on your purchase from Rihac, they seem to have a really high price, IMHO.

Well I got empty kits and in fairness the amount of spares, tools and bits that come with these is VERY comprehensive (even in the standard kits). Support documentation is pretty good although I think some videos on the site would be an improvement and my experience of communication with Same has been good too.

It's not all been plain sailing as a review will show when I finally get around to writing up my experiences but the key thing here is that the kits I've installed so far have worked a heck of a lot better than anything I've put together myself.

In fairness I'm realising that my key mistake has been in "ass-u-me" -ing that pressure balance wasn't as important as it's obviously become in these printers.

 

[canonfodder]

Websnail,

Thanks very much for your answers.

You answered a detail that has puzzled me, concering the air balance reset for this dual-row form of external tanks. I wonder if any other seller has ever furnished the correct information. There are several styles of air balance tanks being sold but I have not seen many sellers who know just what they are selling and how they should be set up. Obviously the tank designers knew exactly what they were doing and why. The designers and the sellers seem rather disconnected.

My experiments with ink elevations have shown that it is not highly critical on my iP4200's, but keeping it about 1/2 inch below the printhead bottom performs well. With the ink level about 1/2 inch above the printhead bottom, the risk of ink leakage and cross contamination is very real.

The first issue that seems to show up with the ink level more than 1/2 inch below the printhead bottom is that my pigment black will fail a nozzle check when it has been idle for a few days. The nozzle check will have random missing lines. It seems always successful to do a heavy cleaning cycle. I don't think this has anything to do with clogging. I believe that there might be a tiny air leak, and the head loses its "prime" just enough to need the ink input of the heavy cleaning. This does not happen with the ink level a bit higher. I have never observed the pigment black ink back up in the tube. Perhaps I would see that if I waited enough days.