Pixma PRO 200 - "We need to go cheaper"

[Mroq]

Hello everyone!

This is my first post on this forum and in fact sincere confession - I took the bait and bought (very) inexpensively PRO 200 without even studying how insane are the upkeep costs and now I have a problem I am hoping that with help of this great community we will come up with some solutions that could be used not only by my but also by other fellow hobbyist.

Of course it is all about the inks. This post is inspired by user @pharmacist and their great recipe for Epson inks. There is not many threads like that in the Internet what worries me a bit.

I understand that with this post I am stepping into professionals territory. I have the most respect for people working in print business but this thread is focused on very loose hobbyist approach to printing. Like the thread name suggest, I am trying to find the cheapest approach to refill PRO 200 that will give acceptable prints and will not damage the printhead. Knowledge wise I was working as printer technician so I have general knowledge what you can and cannot (should not) put in your printer.


Genuine Canon CLI-65 inks are stupid expensive, while Precision Colors inks are not available in my country (and still very expensive) which leaves me and others with these options:

• Mixing OEM Canon ChromaLife100 bottles from Mega Tank series with “clear ink base”. Canon currently sells CMYK + GY + R inks with ChromaLife100 in bottles that should be more less similar as CLI-65. The issue is there is no LGY, LC, LM, PB colours in these bottles what would require mixing. This is the most preferred way I would like to take to make sure the ink is good quality and the colours will not be totally random. This is where inspiration of @pharmacist recipe comes by. Their recipe is fully tested and proven for Epson devices with Epson ink – however much unknown when used in Canon? Had anybody tried to discover the proportions of clear ink base (for Epson) with Canon inks to achieve desired shade? Like I wrote before, it does not need and will not be a one to one match with OEM stuff but will be good enough for hobbyist printing.

• Using PRO 100 inks in PRO 200. There are many formulas on the market that are proven. As on example in my are there are very good quality OCP Inks available that are designed in Germany and made in Poland. Those are inexpensive compared to Precision Colors. I read rumours about printhead being the same in PRO 100 as in PRO 200 while the inks were changed so using PRO 100 inks in PRO 200 with default colour management will result with off-colours – is that true?

• Here we are getting in quite dangerous territory to flush the cartridges and switch entirely to Aliexpress inks that are “designed” to work with everything PRO 1, 100, 100s, 200. Of course these are not and for sure this is the worst option of all three. These inks can be dangerous for printers that do not perform automated cleaning so should be safe for all PIXMA PRO. I really do not want to go this way. There is no guarantee over quality of ink, quality of dyes and of course quality of prints after all.

PRO 200 is on the market for several years now. For sure there were at least few of people that tried and or achieved to find a workaround for this show stopper. I would really like to hear from you from technical standpoint.

Please, do not mention colour fading or that I am going to fry the printhead – I know the risk

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Please, do not mention colour fading or that I am going to fry the printhead – I know the risk

I need to - it's pretty simple - 3rd party inks fade faster - much faster than genuine Canon Chromalife inks - that's not a risk which may happen or not - it's fact. I have done and I'm doing plenty of such ink tests - mainly for Epson printers and compatible inks - but to make it clear and simple - the bottled inks for the G550 printer - the GI-53 series (in Europe - number may vary in other business regions) are the only bottled Canon Chromalife 100 inks with very good fading performance - not other bottled Canon inks can match its performance - and no other 3rd party ink does even come close. And be aware that it's not just the ink defining longevity of a print - the paper plays a sginificant role as well - with a performance ratio of 1 : 4 for different papers, here OEM papers have a lead as well. So it's easy to spoil the good Chromalife ink performance with a cheap 3rd party paper.

But yes - there are lots of prints for which longevity is not relevant at all - you can use here any budget level consumables as you like it.

If you are concerned about off-colors - color shifts etc - get yourself familiar with icc profile generation which whould make sense anyway as soon a you look to use 3rd party papers - it's the ink/paper combination which defines the colors and the acheivable gamut and not the ink type alone.

 

[Mroq]

I need to - it's pretty simple - 3rd party inks fade faster - much faster than genuine Canon Chromalife inks - that's not a risk which may happen or not - it's fact. I have done and I'm doing plenty of such ink tests - mainly for Epson printers and compatible inks - but to make it clear and simple - the bottled inks for the G550 printer - the GI-53 series (in Europe - number may vary in other business regions) are the only bottled Canon Chromalife 100 inks with very good fading performance - not other bottled Canon inks can match its performance - and no other 3rd party ink does even come close. And be aware that it's not just the ink defining longevity of a print - the paper plays a sginificant role as well - with a performance ratio of 1 : 4 for different papers, here OEM papers have a lead as well. So it's easy to spoil the good Chromalife ink performance with a cheap 3rd party paper.

But yes - there are lots of prints for which longevity is not relevant at all - you can use here any budget level consumables as you like it.

If you are concerned about off-colors - color shifts etc - get yourself familiar with icc profile generation which whould make sense anyway as soon a you look to use 3rd party papers - it's the ink/paper combination which defines the colors and the acheivable gamut and not the ink type alone.

Yes, exactly I was talking about these GL-53 inks. These are still quite expensive but you gotta pay for longevity.

How counterintuitive it could sounds like, in fact fading is one of the effects I would like to see. Maybe not in month but 4-6 at least to remind me that it is time to print something new. This was the reason why I did purchased the printer rather than sent the job to one of many printshops in the town, to be able to print what I want and to print frequently.

Speaking of cheap paper, this is a very good point you wrote there Sir. Perhaps it is not worth creating own clear ink base for OEM Canon bottles but instead go straight for PRO 100 ink from OCP.

I am very aware that PRO 200 is a pretty new printer with very bad 3rd party support but had anyone tried one of these three points I wrote in the thread?

 

[cybermorph]

Hello everyone!

This is my first post on this forum and in fact sincere confession - I took the bait and bought (very) inexpensively PRO 200 without even studying how insane are the upkeep costs and now I have a problem I am hoping that with help of this great community we will come up with some solutions that could be used not only by my but also by other fellow hobbyist.

Of course it is all about the inks. This post is inspired by user @pharmacist and their great recipe for Epson inks. There is not many threads like that in the Internet what worries me a bit.

I understand that with this post I am stepping into professionals territory. I have the most respect for people working in print business but this thread is focused on very loose hobbyist approach to printing. Like the thread name suggest, I am trying to find the cheapest approach to refill PRO 200 that will give acceptable prints and will not damage the printhead. Knowledge wise I was working as printer technician so I have general knowledge what you can and cannot (should not) put in your printer.


Genuine Canon CLI-65 inks are stupid expensive, while Precision Colors inks are not available in my country (and still very expensive) which leaves me and others with these options:

• Mixing OEM Canon ChromaLife100 bottles from Mega Tank series with “clear ink base”. Canon currently sells CMYK + GY + R inks with ChromaLife100 in bottles that should be more less similar as CLI-65. The issue is there is no LGY, LC, LM, PB colours in these bottles what would require mixing. This is the most preferred way I would like to take to make sure the ink is good quality and the colours will not be totally random. This is where inspiration of @pharmacist recipe comes by. Their recipe is fully tested and proven for Epson devices with Epson ink – however much unknown when used in Canon? Had anybody tried to discover the proportions of clear ink base (for Epson) with Canon inks to achieve desired shade? Like I wrote before, it does not need and will not be a one to one match with OEM stuff but will be good enough for hobbyist printing.

• Using PRO 100 inks in PRO 200. There are many formulas on the market that are proven. As on example in my are there are very good quality OCP Inks available that are designed in Germany and made in Poland. Those are inexpensive compared to Precision Colors. I read rumours about printhead being the same in PRO 100 as in PRO 200 while the inks were changed so using PRO 100 inks in PRO 200 with default colour management will result with off-colours – is that true?

• Here we are getting in quite dangerous territory to flush the cartridges and switch entirely to Aliexpress inks that are “designed” to work with everything PRO 1, 100, 100s, 200. Of course these are not and for sure this is the worst option of all three. These inks can be dangerous for printers that do not perform automated cleaning so should be safe for all PIXMA PRO. I really do not want to go this way. There is no guarantee over quality of ink, quality of dyes and of course quality of prints after all.

PRO 200 is on the market for several years now. For sure there were at least few of people that tried and or achieved to find a workaround for this show stopper. I would really like to hear from you from technical standpoint.

Please, do not mention colour fading or that I am going to fry the printhead – I know the risk

Precision Colors has a new formulation of Pro 200 ink sets that some are raving about.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

There is apparently not much support for your ideas as it appears to me.

Precision Colors has a new formulation of Pro 200 ink sets that some are raving about.

And what does this mean ? Mike of precisioncolors is trying to let his inks match the color rendition of the original colors as close as possible so that you wouldn't need any new profiles specifically for PC inks, but a perfect match with the OEM inks just conflicts for me with the claim that the new P200 SEV2 inks exceed the gamut of the OEM inks. Some comparative tests would be better than just raves...I have seen other claims like the blackest black ever but a subsequent test showed that other ink/paper combinations could yield the same performance. And there are more 'Ultra' like inks on the market..........................

 

[The Hat]

Precision Colors has a new formulation of Pro 200 ink sets that some are raving about.

You’ve got to give Mike the credit dough, he doesn’t rave by half... Even Canon may have to improve their inks to catch up..

 

[palombian]

No experience with Precision Color's dye inks, but IMO his pigment inks are the best 3th party available.
If I lived in the States/Canada I wouldn't hesitate.
Due to outrageous shipping costs to Europe no option anymore here.

 

[pharmacist]

No experience with Precision Color's dye inks, but IMO his pigment inks are the best 3th party available.
If I lived in the States/Canada I wouldn't hesitate.
Due to outrageous shipping costs to Europe no option anymore here.

I once attend a life video of jtoolman and he mentioned me: pharmacist used to buy from precisioncolors.com, but not anymore now.....Yeap: How comes you think ???

 

[palombian]

I once attend a life video of jtoolman and he mentioned me: pharmacist used to buy from precisioncolors.com, but not anymore now.....Yeap: How comes you think ???

José (and Mike) do follow this forum, maybe our opinion is not unimportant
It's a long time since I saw a video.

 

[Mroq]

No experience with Precision Color's dye inks, but IMO his pigment inks are the best 3th party available.
If I lived in the States/Canada I wouldn't hesitate.
Due to outrageous shipping costs to Europe no option anymore here.

Yep, that's the problem. Even when buying ink in bulk from Precision Colors to cut on the prices, still shipping to Europe kills all the deal.

Funny thing: OCP inks for PRO 100 in bulk containers when purchasing from Germany are even cheaper than these random inks from Aliexpress. The issue there is that the smallest size from OCP they sell is 250ml bottle which is a lot for me.