Opinions on the Canon iP3680??

[alexandereci]

Hello lin, sorry I did not mean to offend you. I meant I do not believe the VALUES you posted, I did not mean to imply you were lying.

Companies can (and do) post meaningless/misleading information to boost sales. I suspect this is such. Why? Because if they say that the new carts are smaller, how can it hold 9ml when my current carts are full at 7ml? Granted I haven't seen/held the new carts, so I may be wrong, the sponge chamber may be smaller so the reservoir is bigger, or 9ml is counting the ink in the sponge chamber + ink in the reservoir... there are many possibilities, until I see what the "explanation" is, I doubt the manufacturer's claim of 9ml.

Thank you very much for posting it though.

That being said, can anyone confirm that the 820/821 carts are PHYSICALLY smaller than the CLI-8 carts?

 

[ghwellsjr]

I believe the 820/821 are the same size as the 220/221 so have a look at this picture:

http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=4126

 

[panos]

hey Alexandereci I have some questions

what do you mean "boost sales" ?

Also what do you mean by "VALUES" ?

Are you sure the cartridges hold 7ml of ink ?

 

[alexandereci]

Boost sales - get your average consumer to buy
Values - the ml posted by lin for the carts
7ml - more or less yes but remember I'm talking about the RESERVOIR only, so the cart itself holds more than 7ml ink if you count the volume on the sponge.

 

[panos]

So, what do you think about the iP3680 printer ? If you buy it, could you post a review with some photos ?

 

[lin]

Hello lin, sorry I did not mean to offend you. I meant I do not believe the VALUES you posted, I did not mean to imply you were lying.

Companies can (and do) post meaningless/misleading information to boost sales. I suspect this is such. Why? Because if they say that the new carts are smaller, how can it hold 9ml when my current carts are full at 7ml? Granted I haven't seen/held the new carts, so I may be wrong, the sponge chamber may be smaller so the reservoir is bigger, or 9ml is counting the ink in the sponge chamber + ink in the reservoir... there are many possibilities, until I see what the "explanation" is, I doubt the manufacturer's claim of 9ml.

Thank you very much for posting it though.

That being said, can anyone confirm that the 820/821 carts are PHYSICALLY smaller than the CLI-8 carts?

Yes, include the amount of ink that gets absorb into the sponge.

Take the CLI-8 for example, few years ago, the box don't indicated the ink capacity, but the new box of the CLI-8 cartridges actually indicated 13ml as the capacity for CLI-8 carts. Despite that I generally refill about 12ml for the CLI-8, as some of my plugs are elongated and not short. Even when some of my short plugs, I still refill 12ml. I prefer to minimize the waste of ink as I don't want the ink to come out of the refill hole. Short of 1ml did not make a significant impact.

 

[alexandereci]

The difficulty I think if you include the amount of ink in the sponge is how to account for that ink. For example, if the box claims 13ml for CLI-8s, and I refill 7-8ml when the reservoir is empty, that means the sponge holds 5ml? How come you mention 12ml? Are you talking about refilling AFTER purging/drying the carts?

panos, the iP3680 "looks" good on paper, however, I just discovered a new Canon-authorized repair center opened in my very city just a few weeks ago so I'm holding off buying the 3680. And to think I was in the Canon dealer already when the sales rep blurted this info out, as I was about to buy the 3680. I really love my 3300 so I'm taking it to the repair center tomorrow to see if it can be saved. If the cost for repairs/replacement comes up to half the cost of the 3680, I'll consider writing the 3300 off and getting the 3680.

However, looking at the specs, it seems that my 3300 is capable of printing just a few millimeters more than the 1pl 3680... now I'm no fussball and my 3300 prints on high settings look excellent to me so I'd rather keep my "bigger" print area than a finer 1pl image... which I doubt I'll be able to actually "see" anyway since most of my prints are PDF books onto 30gsm white bond paper.

 

[pharmacist]

I still think the older CLI-8/PGI-5 based Canon printers are much better then the new tiny cartridges (CLI-221=CLI-521=CLI-821). I second alexandereci about the amount ink you can put into an "empty" cartridge, most notably about 8 ml when the sponge is still abit saturated.

 

[alexandereci]

For some reason, nobody wants to touch my printer while under warranty. They're eager to get their hands on it if I'm willing to void the warranty though. Now the local dealer is blabbering something about not servicing my unit because of some new "policy" by Canon or something. All this run-around is pissing me off.

I found a iP1980 printer that uses the old PG-40/CL-41 inks (and can use the new PG-830/CL-831). This is like my old iP1300, which is the printer that has so far had the longest "desk-life" for me. I figured jumping to a "set" print head would mean a better investment since the printhead would be "built to last" unlike mounted-on-the-carts printhead which would be expected to last only a couple of refills, but with all the BS I'm getting just to get a replacement printhead, I'd rather return to the "disposable" printhead scene.

I figure if they're giving me the runaround even before looking at my printer, they'd find some loophole to excuse themselves from honoring the warranty if they find out I've been modding my carts and using 3rd-party inks.

So the 1980 is looking good right now, and at only half the price of the 3300... or maybe even less than how much a new printhead would cost me.