Refiller For The Canon Pro1 Pgi-29 Tanks

[The Hat]

Had a few queries about the Pro1 recently so wondered how the testing was going...
especially with the Chinese stuff... Joy or nay?

I have been using the ink I got from China now for a couple of weeks and am very happy with it,
its the first complete ink set for the Pro 1 that I used and it does what it says on the box.

If there is any colour difference in this ink I havent noticed and the few photos that I did turn out great
but I got this printer mainly for booklets, posters and leaflets and not for photos.

I got two complete sets of carts with 912 ml of ink for € 172, they have just recently started to sell the complete set by the litre bottle also.
Inkgrabbers in the US do a similar Chinese ink and cart but at twice the price.

Their ink cartridges however only come with one time chips on them, that was the only down side I found but they are working on ARCs so we may also see them pretty soon.

http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/651408853/PIXMA_PRO_1_replacement_cartridge_with.html
This link is no longer active..

 

[jtoolman]

Well, though inks are already appearing in the Alibaba site and on Ebay for the PRO 1 PRO 10 and PRO 100 as well as compatible carts though they are still about $150 a set for the PRO 1. What we need is a chip resetting option or if not, ARCs

PRO -1s are begining to surface on Ebay as well. This is started about 2 days ago with 3 plus days to go and starting bid of $600
No one has bid.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/CANON-PIXMA...56936472?pt=COMP_Printers&hash=item2c69ffdb18

I really havent checked whether Canon is piggybacking these new printers with some high end Canon Cams for a big rebate.
Hell the Pro 10 is looking mighty good to me. I believe the only think lacking is the third shade of gray.

 

[rodbam]

Hat how can you purge the ciss lines if a Pro1 owner wanted to use different inks? Does it mean you have risk problems to change from one 3rd party ink to another?

 

[The Hat]

jtoolman What we need is a chip resetting option or if not, ARCs
Hell the Pro 10 is looking mighty good to me. I believe the only think lacking is the third shade of gray.

All of the inks are now available for the Pro 1 including the three shades of grey and the clear optimiser,
I reckon ARCs will be just as effective as a resetter due to the size of the ink tanks.

It will be quite some time before OCP and Image Specialists get to produce a set of inks
because theres not enough demand for them at present not to mention their cash flow.

rodbam Hat how can you purge the ciss lines if a Pro1 owner wanted to use different inks?
Does it mean you have risk problems to change from one 3rd party ink to another?

I only had I.S. inks in my CISS lines (No OEM) and as I was using a fair bit of ink at the time
so I went ahead and mixed all of the colours except the clear optimiser.

Now of all people I should know not to take a chance and mix these inks but I felt rightly or wrongly
that the ink was constantly on the move so in affect I purged the system while using up the ink
by continuing to print with it and I reckoned it didnt give the inks a chance to settle..

 

[mbasa]

the HAT, thank you very much for the detailed information you are providing, i am now trying to use your technique to do my first refill I bought these chinese catridges

ebay.com/itm/complete-set-pigment-ink-compatible-with-Canon-Pixma-Pro-1-PGI-29-new-Chip-/390578967779?pt=US_Ink_Cartridges&hash=item5af05214e3

but the printer gave B500 internal error when I use them send to service and they changed the printer head, ink supply and mainboard (!!!!) free of charge due to guarantee. After repair I try to use them again and same error. I think they are independent 3rd party IT guys who are trying to screw CANON.

When I open the inkdoor by brute force I can replace the original cartridges and the printer works (actually does not because the original cartridges are empty )) )

Not I break open chinese cartridges and transfer the ink from them to original by your method, but I see that there are some air inside the tubes you think it will be problem?

If this works, I am planning to but these inks ebay.com/itm/12-Pint-pigment-refill-ink-for-Canon-PGI-29-PIXMA-Pro-1-/360561954926?pt=US_Ink_Cartridges&hash=item53f32ad06e and refill with your method, do you think it is a good idea?

 

[The Hat]

Hi mbasa

complete-set-pigment-ink-compatible-with-Canon-Pixma-Pro-1-PGI-29-new-Chip

First off I dont know which type of cartridges you got on EBay because these cartridges shouldn't have given any problems when using them unless they have poorly made chips on board.

The cartridges I got on Alibaba have proven to be very good and not one have ever refused to be recognised when inserted and will also work alongside OEM chips.

Here is a link to Maetone where you can get cartridges with very high volume of ink inside them and if you buy two sets then the P&P is the same price also. ($79 a set)

http://maetone.en.alibaba.com/produ..._cartridge_Canon_for_printer_PIXMA_PRO_1.html
Link: No longer works.

If you want to remove the ink from these cartridges dont pull them apart, otherwise it gets very messy, use a syringe and when making the entry youll hear a hiss when you have pushed the ball valve back far enough to allow the ink to be removed.

Just insert your syringe into the cartridge with about 20 ml of air still in it and while holding the syringe on bottom, pull back on the plunger a little, and using a push pull action replace the ink with air till all the ink has been removed.

This printer will work with the empty cartridges warning showing (Big X) quite well by (Hold in the Resume button for 5 Seconds)

and it wont let you run out of ink entirely either when the cartridge is void of all ink the printer will actually stop and wont let you proceed this is to prevent air from entering the CISS tubing, it will however waste 5 ml of ink just to be sure after replacement.

12-Pint-pigment-refill-ink-for-Canon-PGI-29-PIXMA-Pro-1-/360561954926?pt=US_Ink_Cartridges&hash=item53f32ad06e

I would be very wary of getting that ink you mentioned above for two reasons, one it is not the correct colour set for the Pro 1, and two it look to be a rebranded HP dye ink, you'd be better off using the inks from the 9500 which will match better with profiling, at least its good quality pigment..

 

[mbasa]

Thanks for the quick response but It is too late I already torn apart all the cartridges and managed to refill 2 of them, I will let you know when I finish all and make some attempts to print. But you are right it's damn messy I didnt realize at the beginning but when I came to work all my hands even some parts of my clothes I have yellow

However I am curious how to handle the air inside the cartridge because no matter what I do there is always some air remaining inside. I even see that there are some air bubbles inside the CISS tubes that come from my first attempts of using these chinese cartridges before transferring the ink to original cartridges. I am curious how these bubbles will effect the printer? Does the printer have a built in pre-caution to protect itself against air bubbles inside the tubes or may come from the cartridges, or when these air bubbles reach the head my printer will die

thanks for the suggestion for Non-OEM cartridges, I will ask them if they ship to Poland for 1-2 sets only.

By the way, do you have any suggestions for the 9500 inks, any links that I can buy? I print photos and also B&W so maybe I buy the missing two blacks original and use remaining 10 inks from 9500.

 

[The Hat]

The best way to remove any air that is still left inside your PGI-29s after refilling is to use a syringe holding about 20 ml. of air.
Push the syringe into the cartridge valve then pull back on the plunger slowly
till you can see some ink coming out of the cartridge, that will remove all the air that's left inside, job done.

I dont know how you got air into your CISS tubes in the first place but when it gets to the print head the printer should run a purge cycle itself, if it doesnt then you run a deep clean cycle manually, which will dislodge all of the air with no damage.

Your printer uses only one Black (Photo) cartridge the other is a Matte Black which is solely used for printing on plain paper and is not used for photos, see my ink details in the previous post (Photo black still full) because I use very little of that ink.

Because of you location I would recommend you get all the inks from octoinkjet.co.uk
but youre going to have to Email them for your special requested ink types.

You'll need PGI 9 pigment inks, magenta, Cyan, Yellow, Red, Grey, Matte black, Photo Magenta, Photo Cyan, Photo black and Clear Optimiser.

There are two further inks which are not available at present and they are the light Grey and Dark Grey inks, I currently use the same Grey in all three of my Grey cartridges and am quite satisfied with this arrangement and results.

Now if you want to be real fussy you can use OEM dark and light Grey inks for those two slots (Costly) but I dont think you'll notice any difference because youre probably going to profile for the other colours anyway.

If you decide to use the three greys then you'll need extra of that colour otherwise youll run out of ink quickly, keep your cartridge weight at about 85 gms after refilling, then check their weight weekly and refill before they go below 50 gm to be on the same side..

 

[mbasa]

Hahaa After destroying many syringes, shouting of my girlfriend about creating so much mess in bath and living room and many t-shirts and pants to be cleaned, I managed to refill cartridges first time in my life and made a print which was quite good. I dont use profile tools like SPIDERPRINT or something but just adjust the color adjustments in printer preferences according to my taste and somehow works. But I must thank you the HAT very much for all the info you gave, I followed all your footsteps and couldnt have done it without you, thanks thanks!

The printer has managed all calibration, system cleaning and getting rid of all air inside the tubes and cartridges by itself I am impressed. The first print I made was perfect (almost ... due to lack of profiling) Probably it wasted too much ink during this process because it took 20min before it started printing

I will order 10bottle inks from octoinkjet (http://www.octoink.co.uk/products/Canon-Compatible-Pro-9500-Ink-Set-[10-x-125ml].html) and they will replace the GREEN with CHROME OPTIMIZER with the same price and possible I will use original dark and light grays (I know that I am not so good to understand the difference probably, but I know that I would feel guilty is I buy a 12 ink printer and not use all ) )

Martin from Octoink told me that he ask Image Specialists about inks for PRO1,10,100 but he does not expect them before 6-9 months and he added me to the list of people who are waiting for such inkset.

One thing I couldnt manage was to get rid of ink monitoring, pressing 5-6 sec (10 -20 ) even) does not work and I keep getting the error that I am out of ink even though the cartridges were full. Then I swapped the chips from chinese cartridges to original ones and then it worked. By the way, I was surprised that all different colors have different chips. How am I supposed to disable ink monitoring? Keep pressing the resume button when it starts blinking does not work? Am I missing something?

 

[The Hat]

I am glad to see you are getting to grips with the new inks and ways to colour profile, exactly the same way I do it.

Your Chinese cartridge & chips are certainly unusual to say the least
and I would suggest dumping them in favour of the OEM cartridge & chips.

The way that ink monitoring works is straight forwards, (Explained).

You have twelve completely different cartridges each with their own ink levels,
with independent automatic ink Monitoring.

When you go to print youll get a message on screen telling you that you're out of ink on a particular cartridge, the LED light will be flashing on that cartridge and a Big Red X will be displayed over it, you now have just two choices.

The first one is to replace just the chip or (Both chip & cartridge) the second is to disable the ink monitoring for that individual cartridge only, this operation can only carried out when the resume button is flashing orange repeatedly.

To disable that cartridge from automatic monitoring hold in the orange resume button for a long-ish 5 seconds and then let go, the printer will then relent it's control and return it to you.

Now I know I explained the ink disable thing a bit too long, but others who have similar problems may be interested also, so please remember this procedure has to be done on each and every cartridge that becomes empty but only once, ink monitoring will only return when you fit a new cartridge & chip later.

If you weigh one of your OEM cartridges when it empty it should weigh 40gm so this a good way of knowing when your completely out of ink, but refill long before you get down to 50gm.

The maximum refill weight you should aim for is 85gm or slightly less,
any more than that and the printer will just suck out the excess and waste it on you.

If you wish to keep your current Girl friend (Happy) then next time you go to refill lay down newspaper around the general area to prevent the same thing happening again, and also place a small tissue around the syringe area where it enters the top of the cartridge
just to prevent any blow back till you get the hang of refilling..