OCE CS2236 Ink/Refills

[jtrphotography]

Hi All,
Have recently acquired an OCE CS2236 36" Plotter/Printer from a liquidation auctions and am very happy with the bargain I got.
Although it came with a full set of inks I am doing some research ahead of time for when it comes to needing more.

Im only using it for printing my photos/canvas for clients and a few posters for friends with new businesses. Although it is not strictly ideal/designed for printing large photos on canvas etc Im happy with the results so far.

Either way being an older machine it is now discontinued and although inks are still available Im looking at the options.

I have posted this in the Canon section as I believe the range was bought out by Canon and I have been told that more recent cannon versions even use the same printhead.

My question is are any if the cannon cartridges compatible? I have seen some which look almost identical.

Or even better any advice on if it is possible/suitable to refill these cartridges would be greatly received.
The original OCE cartridges are 'IJC236'.

Any advice appreciated.

Joe

 

[The Hat]

Hi Joe,
You certainly have a dinosaur there but one thats not quite extinct.
The pro graph range of Canon plotters would be suitable but I dont think you have taught this thing thought.

You may well find it easy to get Canon cartridges to fit your printer but the chips will make them
unsuitable so they wont actually register in your printer.

Does your printer use dye or pigment inks, the reason I asked is that third party inks would be more suitable
to use with your current set of cartridges and be far cheaper..

 

[jtrphotography]

3rd party cartridges were preferred but have drawn up short searching for options so guessed that refilling would be the only option but still leaves the problem of the chips.
It is dye based ink, any suggestions will be greatly received!
Do you have or have you used on of these printers as have another could of questions regarding media types and colour profiles - as it wasn't officially listed as printing on canvas it will happily do it however there are no profiles in the default media types - while searching I have seen the pro graph app to load additional profiles. although this if for the newer cannon profiles when i updated the firmware it used the cannon pro graph firmware updater so they obviously run similar software. again any comments greatly appreciated.
Joe

 

[The Hat]

The only options you have with your printer is to either use OEM cartridges and inks
or refill the cartridges with 3rd party inks, either ways you probably wont need to use additional profiles.

As far as the chips are concerned you will just have to disable the ink monitoring
to be able to continue to print but just dont turn off your printer if you go that route.

The pro graph inks are much the same as the smaller printers so getting inks wont be a problem,
you can try http://www.octoink.co.uk/categories/Bulk-Ink/Canon-Compatible/ for I.S. inks.
Or new inks with http://www.compredia.co.uk/oce-ink-cartridge-for-oce-cs-2236.html

 

[jtrphotography]

i was asking about media/colour profiles being installed as there isn't a canvas media option on the printer so am struggling to get the correct colours and additionally am having to compensate for canvas shrinkage manually as a-posed to the printer doing automatically as i believe it would if correct media profile was loaded.

thanks for the links by the way.
presumably disabling the print monitor will mean the ink levels will no longer be displayed.
would doing this work if the cartridge is already empty or would it need to be done before ink runs out?
Joe

 

[The Hat]

If youre having a problem with canvas an option is to experiment with it to get the best settings.

I have printed both B&W and colour on canvas on a couple of my printers with little or no problems,
but I cant remember exactly which paper setting I used it wasn't canvas,
one thing that can help dough is to use a much lower DPI than for normal papers.

The ink monitoring can only be turned off when your printer signals you that youre out of ink,
then it becomes possible, and the best way to know how much ink is left in the cartridge is to weight it.

Question you said you upgraded your printer firmware with a Canon upgrade,
thats very interesting but from which Canon printer was this firmware from. (Model number)

 

[jtrphotography]

it was oce firmware for this specific printer but the website gave a link to download the prograph firmware update tool which is why i was trying to find out if its possible to install additional media profiles as have seen videos you you tube installing additional profiles on prograph printers, and since the prograph firmware update tool was used to install the updated oce firmware i had fingers crossed the media profile install app may also work for this oce printer as the update tool did.
colours is not the main issue as have set photoshop to manage colours instead of printer but was hoping the correct media profile will help compensate for the canvas shrinkage.

 

[The Hat]

The reason I asked and hoped for was that if you had used a Canon upgrade you then might have being able
to use the same models cartridges in your printer, for which there would have being ARC chips available.

If your using normal canvas cotton weave with universal primer on it then shrinkage wouldnt be a problem,
but if not you can compensate that with the lower DPI settings anyway.

 

[jtrphotography]

For some reason I haven't quite worked out yet printing at 300dpi results in a black line every 27mm and still ends up short!
Am going to try and adjust media type length setting on the media profile i have set aside for canvas and see what happens.

 

[jtrphotography]

thanks again for all the advice...
the media length adjustment has happily compensated for the length issue so getting there.
have been tinkering finding the correct colour profile for the canvas i have, unfortunately being a 'dinosaur' of a printer as you put it lol i am struggling to find canvas based profiles for it online however after printing 14 sample images with the standard profiles which were shipped with the printer there are a few which seem pretty spot on so am going to pass them around for a second opinion.
alternatively i have seen companies offing custom colour profiles for as little as 15 which seems pretty reasonable to me, have you ever had open made? are the worth it?