My Canon PRO-10 on refill ink - and what happened to my PRO-9500II

[palombian]

With all my ink changes I do not always have a refilled cart ready for every color as you should have and José Rodriguez stressed again yesterday:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmJoVS8iSR0

With all respect I disagree.
Although I wouldn't recommend it as standard procedure, it is perfectly possible to refill carts one by one.
A cartridge where all air has been removed accepts ink dripped from a squeeze bottle very fast.
This does not take much more time than opening the box of a new cartridge and removing the plastic bag and the clip, so I don't think air can enter in one or two minutes time.
After about 10 minutes the printer will retract the printhead, but all you have to do is closing and reopening the cover and press the button again.

 

[palombian]

Continuing on @mikling's very interesting post about Custom Clear Coating with the PRO-10, I already found out a few things.

You can create in the CO/Custom settings a Form File.
See this as a mask for CO, the areas where CO normally is not applied.
When you create such a Form File by "printing" (= when CO settings in Custom/Create Form File) an image with areas without ink, nothing is printed, but a mask leaving only the white parts open is stored in the driver.
Afterwards you change the CO setting to Custom/Form Composite Print and the image is printed with CO only applied to the blank areas.
This supposes a perfect alignment of the paper (not the case in my first tests).

I could imagine this can be useful on paper/ink combinations not suffering from gloss differences and only needing CO to equalize the blank areas, thus saving on CO.

Another way of coarse is removing clipped highlights in post processing.
In this case you can print on glossy paper without applying CO using a "Form File" created with a 100% black image.

Should a 50% grey mask apply half of the regular CO ?
As far as I could observe the mask seems to be all or none, only RGB 255,255,255 areas are considered.
In this case CO application is less sophisticated as the "Auto" setting suggests and for most prints the "Full" setting shouldn't consume significantly more CO.
To be investigated further ...

It seems the CO Custom settings are only accessible in glossy paper and high quality settings.

PS: on "pigment friendly" papers the results on the PRO-9500 are close to the PRO-10, on condition the same inks are loaded - not what was available before - and even in this case I am not able until now to produce the same deep blacks.
Most of my frustration about gloss differences was caused by inadequate ink and paper.
OTH with the PRO-10 I have now good results on papers I abandoned with the 9500.
This because of the better gloss equality of the inks (also nearly all the 3th party ones).
CO enables to compensate remaining deficiencies, and these Custom setting could help to fine tune.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Most of my frustration about gloss differences was caused by inadequate ink and paper.

I only can confirm tlhis - it applies equally to Epson - a particular 3rd party refill ink may do quite well on this or that paper but just looks terrible/useless on some other paper. But it is not the case that a particular paper always looks bad with different inks - every combination needs to be tested and judged (and profiled) separately, and to make it even more complex - GO/CO's from different suppliers create a different look as well - from invisible to too much - and a custom form for the CO application may fix this particular problem.

 

[palombian]

It doesn’t matter whether your using a Pro 9500 or Pro 10, you can use any profile that’s loaded in you system, just because it says it’s for a Pro 10 or a Pro 1, that means nothing, a quick trail will tell all… Test in A5 size..

It’s the same regarding the wide margins restriction, and using a different profile will bypass them, the only settings that are set in stone are the borderless sizes..

Indeed, independent from the (matte) paper loaded, Fine Art settings give a deeper black and wider color gamut.
Even others as semi gloss do.

If you want to print borderless this way, filling MBK in the PBK gives a deeper black, but the colours (in particular skintones) are affected too and when you make a profile for this condition the soft preview doesn't reflect the print anymore.

So it is trial and error again.

I tried to glue a 30/35 mm border to my A3+ sheets but with Fine Art you can't adapt the format other than the standard ones with /3035 mm border in both printers.

Using a profile made for Fine art settings for a borderless print where you can only use Matte settings is not possible.

Making a profile with MBK ink in the PBK cart works and gives deeper blacks, but can't give the maximum the printer can do on a certain paper.

Maybe @mikling had a point minimising this trick a few weeks ago, but the result on the PRO-10 is much closer to Fine Art than on the PRO-9500II (most people won't see the difference and it is for posters anyway).

For one or another reason I can't get strong colours on matte paper with the PRO-9500, even loading the same inks as in the PRO-10, so I have to abandon the idea of using this printer for matte. Maybe only B&W.

 

[Artur5]

What about printing with QImage ?
You can use Fine Art settings defeating the 30mm. minimal margin limit and use also custom sized papers. @Borut showed us how to do so. Not really borderless, but you loose only 1 cmt. of paper instead of 6 cmt. Of course, Qimage isn't free but, what is free in this money-ridden world ?.

 

[palombian]

What about printing with QImage ?
You can use Fine Art settings defeating the 30mm. minimal margin limit and use also custom sized papers. @Borut showed us how to do so. Not really borderless, but you loose only 1 cmt. of paper instead of 6 cmt. Of course, Qimage isn't free but, what is free in this money-ridden world ?.

I'll try that.

PS: the trick works, although with normal margins.
While testing on 120g office paper, I observed the prints look quite good for posters.
Sadly no A3+ available, only SRA3 (32x45cm) or A3, but 125 sheets 250g for about € 15 is not bad.

>
You have to use the software hack in Qimage to get rid of the borders. The instructions are:

Note: this may look complicated but you only need to do these steps/checks once. Once it works, you can save the setup in Qimage and name it something like "PPP Premium Matte - 30mm hack" and recall it next time: then you only need to perform steps 5-9 below each subsequent time. That basically amounts to recalling the setup, adding prints, clicking the print button, and then right clicking the "Cancel Print" button when the Canon error message pops up to perform the hack that automatically closes that Canon error window and forces the print job to continue.

(1) Use "Properties" to set up your driver: select Photo Paper Pro Premium Matte, set quality settings, color management, etc. Select your paper size, for example, 8.5x11.
(2) Click "OK" in the driver to accept driver settings. The driver will force you to pick a paper size with the 30mm margins: that's fine, let it do that (see next step).
(3) Now that the driver has forced the 30mm margins, override it by dropping down "Media Size" on Qimage's main window and re-select the size you want (for example Letter 8.5x11).
(4) Do not open "Properties" to access the driver after this step but if you have to, you'll have to repeat steps 2 and 3 when you close the driver.
(5) Add prints as usual and click print to print the job. See *Important note* below before actually printing.
(6) When the prints are processed by Qimage, you'll get a message from the driver that it needs 30mm margins. Leave that error message on screen and proceed to next step.
(7) Right click the Cancel Printing button in Qimage: the top right-most button on the Qimage main window that has a printer with an X through it.
(8 ) You'll get a system administrator message from your computer requesting permission to perform the "hack": click Yes on that to accept.
(9) The Canon media error message will go away and the job will start printing: see *How to Use the Software Hack* to see what to expect while printing and how the hack works.

*Important Note*

Before printing, check the "Printers and Settings" tab on the Qimage main window and be sure the "Res" parameter lists "Max (600 PPI)" as the print resolution. If you see "Max (600 PPI)" in that setting, skip this step but if you see anything other than "Max (600 PPI)", you have to take these additional steps to ensure the driver is set up for the above task. If "Res" is anything other than "Max (600 PPI)":

(1) First drop down the "Res" setting and see if you have a "Max (600 PPI)" selection: maybe you just have it set to "High (300 PPI)" and you can change it to "Max (600 PPI)" instead.
(2) If you see "Max (1200 PPI)", you need to click "Properties", go into the driver, go to the Page Setup tab, click the "Print Options" button, and set "Prevention of Print Data Loss" to "Weak".
(3) If you see something like "Max (960 PPI), you selected scaling in the driver: go into the driver, click the Page Setup tab, and click "Normal Size" under Page Layout.
(4) If you see something like "Max (610 PPI) or something just over 600 PPI, you are in borderless mode. Uncheck borderless in the driver: borderless has not been tested with the hack.
(5) If you had to do any of (2), (3), or (4), you'll have to repeat steps (2) and (3) from the prior list up top to override the 30mm margins since the driver will force that on you when you exit the driver.

*How to Use the Software Hack*

When you right click the "Cancel Printing" button in Qimage to initiate the hack (you do this after clicking print and after you see the Canon error message about wrong media size), the software hack will close that Canon error window (the error window saying you need a paper size with 30mm margins) and once that Canon error window disappears on its own (don't close it manually), printing will proceed normally on your Pro-10 without the 30mm margins. It will likely take somewhere between 10-30 seconds for the printer to actually start printing. Keep in mind that if you don't already have the matte paper loaded in the rear tray, the form feed button will blink and you'll have to load a sheet manually at this point and click the form feed button on the printer for printing to start. This is normal and it does this even if you are printing normally (with 30mm margins) without the hack. The difference when using the hack is: you have to know what to do because the Canon driver will not give you the little popup messages that say "Load paper in rear tray and then press the feed button". That's because the software hack in step 7 basically says "GO AWAY Canon driver... let Windows process this job now". So the Canon driver gets disconnected so it can no longer throw messages but as a side effect, you also no longer get the Canon hint windows that give you hints about what to do like "load paper in rear tray". That shouldn't be a problem if you are familiar with the process: you just have to perform the same steps as if the popups had told you what to do.

Once again when you click print and you see that Canon media error message, never close that Canon media error message by clicking "OK" or closing the window yourself: you have to leave that error window open so that the software hack (right clicking the Cancel Printing button) will force that error window closed on its own.

Mike
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[palombian]

After some fiddling with Qimage I must admit the hack works.
It does not only allow to remove the 30mm margin in Fine Art settings, but more important allows any paper size, while the Canon driver only accepts standard sizes.

I tried some office papers from Clairefontaine.
They have DCP - a smooth surface mainly for color laser - up to 400g, and Clairalfa - a copy/inkjet paper with a more silky structure - up to 350g.
I found DCP SRA3 size (32x45cm) 250g at a local shop and can print posters on this with a small margin.

Using the Photo Paper Pro Premium Matte settings (with a custom profile) I achieve nearly the same result with the 9500 as with the PRO-10 (I loaded the 9500 XPS driver to be sure but don't think this makes a difference).
No surprise since the inks in both printers are not the same.

Qimage has the nasty habit to change some printer settings. You need to go in Properties to switch on the Advanced printer functions again, if not you miss the Preview before printing and some of the Page settings.

Don't be fixed on "Max(600 PPI)" any 600 works.

Since the hack disables the driver you need to know the button sequence for the single sheet feeder, a bit tricky with the 9500.

By accepting a small border Qimage removes not only the need for the PBK=MBK trick (making you think you have an Epson ) but with the Fine Art settings you can give more pop to any matte paper.

PS: these papers take a long time to dry (and look better afterwards)

 

[Artur5]

For some time I’ve had problems with one of my CO carts. Nozzle checks were bad. A cleaning cycle fixed the issue but only for a few days. I flushed the outlet pad with pharmacist’s solution, in case it was clogged, but no good. The other cart, using the same ink, worked without issue, so it wasn’t the chroma but something in the cart.

Today I discovered the problem. The internal bag leaks because there is liquid in the inner space between the plastic body and the bag.
First time in more than 2 years that a PGI-72 fails mechanically, so to speak
Probably my fault for pushing too hard the syringe’s plunge when refilling. Although these bags must be quite tough, there’s always a breaking point ..or maybe it was rare instance of a defective bag from the start ?
I reckon that the ‘drip.. drip.. drip’ refill system is tiresome and slow but you avoid such issues.

 

[mikling]

I warned of the issue of washing PGI-72 tanks in my last appearance on Jose's Rodriguez ( Toolman) podcast. There is a small air inlet at the top corner of the tanks and if water or any fluid enters there during any wash or soak procedure, the resulting fluid inside will cause the diaphragm to stick onto the case through surface tension effects and bad flow will result. Those espousing dumping these tanks into water need to correct their advice. Once water enters it is near impossible to remove because there is essentially no circulation inside that space.

There is another reason why you should NOT use the fast method as some have espoused. Once the bladder inside has set its folds as a bellow inside, you only want to have it repeat the same path over and over and its pattern is smooth, If you force the folds out completely, you can disrupt the pattern and then it can cause a sticking action. There is another reason the fast method is not so good. It does not clear the pigment settled into the contact pad. During a refill with the slow method, the user can apply ink throughout the pad and BACKFLUSH the pads thereby dislodging trapped pigments back into the tank to be mixed again. If you use the fast method, the incoming ink essentially is forced in and concentrated at one point. It hardly backflushes the entire pad. So for those espousing the use of the fast method, it has its drawbacks and you need to recognize it.

Smoking is known to be bad and it is proven. Yet there are many who have lived long lives and smoked. You make the choice of the path you take. So I wish no comments how the fast method worked for them and there is no issue. There are many paths to a destination.

 

[palombian]

I warned of the issue of washing PGI-72 tanks in my last appearance on Jose's Rodriguez ( Toolman) podcast. There is a small air inlet at the top corner of the tanks and if water or any fluid enters there during any wash or soak procedure, the resulting fluid inside will cause the diaphragm to stick onto the case through surface tension effects and bad flow will result. Those espousing dumping these tanks into water need to correct their advice. Once water enters it is near impossible to remove because there is essentially no circulation inside that space.

There is another reason why you should NOT use the fast method as some have espoused. Once the bladder inside has set its folds as a bellow inside, you only want to have it repeat the same path over and over and its pattern is smooth, If you force the folds out completely, you can disrupt the pattern and then it can cause a sticking action. There is another reason the fast method is not so good. It does not clear the pigment settled into the contact pad. During a refill with the slow method, the user can apply ink throughout the pad and BACKFLUSH the pads thereby dislodging trapped pigments back into the tank to be mixed again. If you use the fast method, the incoming ink essentially is forced in and concentrated at one point. It hardly backflushes the entire pad. So for those espousing the use of the fast method, it has its drawbacks and you need to recognize it.

Smoking is known to be bad and it is proven. Yet there are many who have lived long lives and smoked. You make the choice of the path you take. So I wish no comments how the fast method worked for them and there is no issue. There are many paths to a destination.

I doubt the "fast method" is so fast since you need to fill syringes with ink and clean them afterwards.
With the dribble method you can use squeeze bottles (as far as I know introduced by octoinkjet.co.uk @websnail ).
A cart in good condition (clean pads, no air) can be dribble filled in about a minute.

Never came to the idea to bath PGI-9/PGI-72 carts , but the bag sticking is maybe a point to observe with the Maxify (where the bag is vented and ink can seep in the case by overfilling).