Canon Pro-100 — Printer not working; Is refilling ink a bad idea?

[Centradragon]

Hey there, guys! Thanks for reading this thread... I hope none of this has happened to you before, haha!


A little background: I used compatible carts from LDProducts for about 4 years for my Pro-9000, with no problems until very recently — something I assume might be parts wearing down than any ink issues.


In a time crunch last year I bought the Pro-100... I didn't really start using it very heavily until this weekend. I bought refill ink (from Precision inks, and a chip resetter), and for days of heavy printing (6-8+ hours a day) it worked out amazing (I bought different carts for the yellow and followed instructions to flush lines, etc). No leaks, no issues... until all of a sudden the yellow cart completely stopped printing. I tried doing cleanings, and it seemed the problem changed each time:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/wk12dk90ak7nv6r/2014-03-05 20.46.28.jpg
https://www.dropbox.com/s/oqoth8trx6fhls9/2014-03-05 20.45.54-1.jpg
https://www.dropbox.com/s/sjvwlveymvyytjl/2014-03-05 20.46.44.jpg

After sleeping on it, calling Canon, and trying some cleanings again, and the diagnostic printout looked great... however, the instant I tried printing something substantial the colors were all wrong and the next diagnostic print came back bizarro. It's under warranty so I'll be taking it to a shop next week to be fixed, but I'm very nervous about this.


I've had another person mention refill ink caused her print head issues — Is it possible that refilling ink isn't great for the Pro-100? Has anyone else been refilling ink with good results? Is this printer just not as great longevity-wise as the Pro-9000? (Or very likely, am I doing something wrong?) If there are any related threads, feel free to chastise me and post 'em... I did some searching but had trouble finding things relevant to my issues. 8(

 

[The Hat]

You have certainly got a great variety of nozzle checks, and some I have not see before.

If you’re getting such a varied printout then I would suggest soaking the print head in some washing-up liquid, the hand wash and not the auto stuff. (Dawn)

Use warm water about 2 inches deep with a couple of spoonfuls of washing liquid in it cover the ink inlets also and leave it to stand for 48 hours at least, rinse and dry the head before installing it again.

Now it maybe too late to save the print head so if the soaking doesn’t work then that’s what you’re going to need because you may have overheated the print head but we don’t know that for sure.

I would take this opportunity to purge the yellow cartridge, dry it and refill as normal just to be on the same side and have it ready again for your next test nozzle print..

 

[Smile]

for days of heavy printing (6-8+ hours a day) it worked out amazing

You must do at least basic maintenance if you do this kind of volume printing. I think it's self explanatory but perhaps that's just me.

 

[Roy Sletcher]

You must do at least basic maintenance if you do this kind of volume printing. I think it's self explanatory but perhaps that's just me.

The OP refers to "for days of heavy printing (6-8+ hours a day) it worked out amazing".
Yet his page count on the nozzle checks shows a total of only 500 pages printed.

Given the description of "days of heavy printing" I would have expected at least a couple of thousand pages printed.

Of course it is possible I have missed a vital piece of data. Jumping to conclusions is the best exercise I get nowadays.

Oh, and another point! If the printer is returned to Canon for warranty work or replacement, the refilled cartridges may be a problem unless you swap them out. Cost of 8 new OEM cartridges almost equal to the cost of a discounted new Pro-100.

Too late now, but I have always found when having persistent problems with nozzle checks, that by replacing the troublesome cart with a new OEM cart. You can very quickly isolates the problem as EITHER a clogged head OR a defective refilled cart.

Roy Sletcher
"Not normally this crabby, but I do shoot people with a big Canon for fun".

 

[Smile]

I wish brother would make 6color printers, just add ink. no nonsense hard to beat refilling techniques required. But then again they do use black channel for photo printing (canon never does this whatever you select in driver) so it ain't so bad with piezo head and 1.5pl droplets. Beats any 4color Epson by price and quality.

 

[The Hat]

The OP refers to "for days of heavy printing (6-8+ hours a day) it worked out amazing".
Yet his page count on the nozzle checks shows a total of only 500 pages printed.
Given the description of "days of heavy printing" I would have expected at least a couple of thousand pages printed.
Of course it is possible I have missed a vital piece of data. Jumping to conclusions is the best exercise I get nowadays.

If your busy proofing and printing photos then 6-8+ hours is no time at all especially when you’re enjoying yourself, then there is refilling to be considered also.

But then again they do use black channel for photo printing (canon never does this whatever you select in driver)

Can you explain to me what exactly you mean by:- use black channel for photo printing, Canon never does ?

If Brother ever decides to make a 6 colour printer then you can be assured that it will have chips on its cartridges too !

 

[Smile]

If Brother ever decides to make a 6 colour printer then you can be assured that it will have chips on its cartridges too !

I don't wan to be incorrect haven't investigated it myself but some printer already do have chips. But Refillable carts have arc chips too. So there is not problem with that.

The plus on brother side is that carts are in the printer, not the printhead.
And on large refillable ones, you can refill without removing them.

Can you explain to me what exactly you mean by:- use black channel for photo printing, Canon never does ?

Bother has 4 CMYK ink colors, normally the CMY are dye color, K is pigment. But unlike canon if you select photo mode in driver the black ink is used from black cart. The printer does not mix CMY to make black.

Canon that has CMYK inks with K pigment ink (All tricolor printers for example that have 2 carts, tricolor cart and pigment black) never use pigment black for photos.

But as you know there are two types of black, pigment blck is good on matt paper, while glossy paper needs photo black. Since the OEM CISS used brother has very little ink inside it (I was amazed that it cleaned after 4 head cleanings and 5 pages A4 printed in black) you can have 2 black carts and swap them if you are going to print on glossy and matt paper and wan't the deep black the pigment ink has to offer.

I just used photo black from EPSON as my K ink and it works on all papers.

 

[The Hat]

Bother has 4 CMYK ink colors, normally the CMY are dye color, K is pigment. But unlike canon if you select photo mode in driver the black ink is used from black cart. The printer does not mix CMY to make black.

When you set the Brother printer to print on photo paper you’ll find that it does in fact use the three CYM colours to reproduce the black just the same way that the 5/6 colour Canon printers do, the extra photo black is then used as an overlay and highlighter and is not used to reproduce black solely on its own.

When it comes to high quality photos, Brother Printers are not in the same ball park as Epson and Canon are, simply because Brother generally makes good all round printers and doesn’t specialize in the photo market in the way that Epson/Canon do.

Example
On my iX4000 which has three CYM dye inks and one black pigment cartridge, it is true that on photo paper this printer only uses these three dye inks to reproduce the 4 colours entirely (No black) and never uses the Black pigment ink however !

If I print the same colour photo on Matte or plain paper this printer will then use all the 4 inks, so to say that Canon printers never use pigment ink for photos is not entirely correct..

 

[Smile]

If I print the same colour photo on Matte or plain paper this printer will then use all the 4 inks, so to say that Canon printers never use pigment ink for photos is not entirely correct..

only photo paper pro allows for best quality.

When you set the Brother printer to print on photo paper you’ll find that it does in fact use the three CYM colours to reproduce the black just the same way that the 5/6 colour Canon printers do, the extra photo black is then used as an overlay and highlighter and is not used to reproduce black solely on its own.

On my 5895Cw that is not the case, (print mode -> Inkjet paper, quality -> photo) black is made from black ink. I can be sure because when i used pigment black I could smear it with my finger if I used glossy photo paper, when I changed to dye black this is no longer a problem.

Also brother includes 2 paper presets like "brother photo paper" - on these the CMY inks are used to mix balck, but linearization curves are very customized. proiles get not very good.

 

[turbguy]

Hey there, guys! Thanks for reading this thread... I hope none of this has happened to you before, haha!


A little background: I used compatible carts from LDProducts for about 4 years for my Pro-9000, with no problems until very recently — something I assume might be parts wearing down than any ink issues.


In a time crunch last year I bought the Pro-100... I didn't really start using it very heavily until this weekend. I bought refill ink (from Precision inks, and a chip resetter), and for days of heavy printing (6-8+ hours a day) it worked out amazing (I bought different carts for the yellow and followed instructions to flush lines, etc). No leaks, no issues... until all of a sudden the yellow cart completely stopped printing. I tried doing cleanings, and it seemed the problem changed each time:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/wk12dk90ak7nv6r/2014-03-05 20.46.28.jpg
https://www.dropbox.com/s/oqoth8trx6fhls9/2014-03-05 20.45.54-1.jpg
https://www.dropbox.com/s/sjvwlveymvyytjl/2014-03-05 20.46.44.jpg

After sleeping on it, calling Canon, and trying some cleanings again, and the diagnostic printout looked great... however, the instant I tried printing something substantial the colors were all wrong and the next diagnostic print came back bizarro. It's under warranty so I'll be taking it to a shop next week to be fixed, but I'm very nervous about this.


I've had another person mention refill ink caused her print head issues — Is it possible that refilling ink isn't great for the Pro-100? Has anyone else been refilling ink with good results? Is this printer just not as great longevity-wise as the Pro-9000? (Or very likely, am I doing something wrong?) If there are any related threads, feel free to chastise me and post 'em... I did some searching but had trouble finding things relevant to my issues. 8(

Looking at these nozzle checks, I believe your printer has a hardware/firmware issue rather than a print head or ink issue. How did you make out with Canon??