Pro-10 blend Precision Colors and OEM

[Ketil Wright]

Hi;

My new Canon pima pro 10 is nearing a few empty tanks. Recently I bought the PGI-72 refill kit from Precision Colors.

I calibrate my monitor using a data color spider, and am careful to use the correct icc profiles for my monitor and for each paper type. I have gotten acceptable, and occasionally good results using a variety of papers.

I am curious what approach I should use as I transition to the Precision Colors ink. Should I simply fill an empty cartridge with PC ink (leaving the remaining OEM cartridges to drain), or should I empty the remaining non-empty ones (or order empties somewhere), and make sure the transition from OEM to PC is done all in one shot?

I realize I will want to switch to their icc profile, but at what point. My assumption is that since the PC icc files exist in the 1st place, there is some difference between PC and OEM.

Thank You

 

[The Hat]

When you run the cartridge to empty on the Pro 10, it still will have a very small amount of OEM ink left inside and so if you really want accrete and positive colour output from your new PC inks then you’d be better off draining the cartridges.

You’ll need a clip like this to drain all of the ink out of the cartridge.

You can make something similar yourself like this by cutting a syringe needle down and just leave ¼ inch of Steele, then by using a push pin, poke a hole in one of your orange clips and then insert the shorten needle into that hole and you have your very own refill clip.

The way to use it is simple, just attach the orange clip onto the empty cart and put a syringe onto the needle, then with the cartridge on top and syringe below draw out any remaining ink and that’s it, you cartridge is now ready to refill.

It would be totally unwise to use anything other than OEM cartridges in this printer..

 

[Thombar]

@hat are you saying only the Canon OEM cartridges will work in the Pixma Pro 100? Have I just wasted a lot of money getting a full replacement set from Precision Colors?
Thanks,
Thom

 

[Ketil Wright]

We are talking about the pro10 (which uses pigment) not the pro 100 (which uses dye), so YMMV.

I noticed a page at the Precision Colors web site which points out some caveats of these more economical aftermarket cartridges. This was linked to from the Pro100 refill page.

If there were a source for empty OEM carts for the Pro10 (there appear to be none at PC), I would like to know about them.

I suppose one approach for me is to continue buying complete sets of OEM carts, until I wind up with a complete set of empty carts in the future. Or, I may consider Hat's approach.

 

[The Hat]

@hat are you saying only the Canon OEM cartridges will work in the Pixma Pro 100? Have I just wasted a lot of money getting a full replacement set from Precision Colors?
Thanks,
Thom

Hi Thom, if you are getting replacement cartridges from PercisionColors, then your good to go because Mike would never sell anything other than proper OEM cartridges for the Pro 100 printer, they maybe CLl-8’s but you can be sure there’re all genuine OEM’s.

My statement above was specifically for the Pro 10 machine because they use a totally different type of cartridge and it would be hard to duplicate this cartridge properly without running into copyright issues..

 

[Ketil Wright]

BTW, Thank You, Hat!
I found empty pgi72 carts at http://www.octoink.co.uk. (I am in the USA).
Are these a reasonable approach to my problem? They come with a warning of "what you see is what you get".

 

[palombian]

When you run the cartridge to empty on the Pro 10, it still will have a very small amount of OEM ink left inside and so if you really want accrete and positive colour output from your new PC inks then you’d be better off draining the cartridges.

You’ll need a clip like this to drain all of the ink out of the cartridge.

View attachment 3420
You can make something similar yourself like this by cutting a syringe needle down and just leave ¼ inch of Steele, then by using a push pin, poke a hole in one of your orange clips and then insert the shorten needle into that hole and you have your very own refill clip.

The way to use it is simple, just attach the orange clip onto the empty cart and put a syringe onto the needle, then with the cartridge on top and syringe below draw out any remaining ink and that’s it, you cartridge is now ready to refill.

It would be totally unwise to use anything other than OEM cartridges in this printer..

As suggested by @The Hat, it is better not to flush the cartridge with water, it is difficult to remove entirely, you will dilute the ink, and that is visible especially with yellow.
Solution is to sacrifice a few ml ink to "prime" the cartridge (as shown in a video at octoinkjet.co.uk, selling the same ink, previously from a company IS - not the Daesh).

When I know the cartridge had recent OEM ink in it, I refill immediately with Precision Colors ink, never had any problems.
I only flush when switching from one 3th party ink to another (a bad idea, you better stay with Precision Colors ).

Indeed, only the original OEM cartridges have all the internals to be refillable.
Never throw them away.

 

[The Hat]

They come with a warning of "what you see is what you get".

@Ketil Wright, those carts from Octoinkjet are as they say exactly what you get, just an empty used PGl-72 cart and nothing else is done to them and you have to take care of how you want to use them afterwards.

As @palombian has stated use a couple of ml of refill ink to rinse out the inside of the carts before use, you can of course use water but you’ll have to use a bit of heat to dry them out completely, not so if you use ink to rinse.

You can also use PGl-9 carts as spare carts if you wish but you’ll have to swap the chip from another cart each time you want to use them.

Another few Tips:- fill an extra Photo black cartridge with Matte black ink and you can then have the choice of using the darker ink if your not happy with the depth of black on some of your prints, but beware it takes a little longer to fully dry on some surfaces.

Octoinkjet also stock the cartridge refill clip that I posted in post #2, they are the most convenient way to do all your cartridge maintenance and instant refilling instead of the dribble method.

Please remember to change as many cartridge as you can when one is showing low on ink, it will stop the machine doing a cleaning cycle on every change of cart, and save a lot of wasted ink over the ten carts.

Last but not least, it’s a huge mistake to get too complacent when refilling so many carts, make sure by checking twice that you are certain that you’re refilling the right cart with the right colour ink, it sounds stupid but it happens all too often and it will show up on your prints, hair pulling time, WHAT the hell is wrong ! !

 

[Ketil Wright]

Thank You all for your insight.

 

[websnail]

Just to add on the flushing side of things...

We've been doing a a fair bit of testing with our own inks (side story) but along the way we've found that occasionally you can get a big of a clog in the outlet sponge so flushing with a compatible cleaning solution and the flush clip was something we tested out. Depending on the reason for the clog sometimes this is the only way to bring a cartridge back into service rather than using the ink.

That said, the emphasis here is on a compatible cleaning solution, not as has been mentioned earlier, with water.

The good news is that each time we've flushed the approach has worked really well and we've done it more than a few times on empty cartridge sets.

Oh and last nugget to note... All the PGI-72 carts are sealed with a cartridge clip so there's no air getting to the sponges (or the ink inside) and no drying action so they're likely ready to go with minimal effort.

Here endeth my treatise on cartridges... back to the nappies!