New Printers that are beyond the 225/226 or 525/526. Time to hoard!

mikling

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Did anybody get one of these yet?
Tonite I will try and get out to pick one up on promo.
So far before getting one there are quite a few thorns with these.

1. The printhead is no longer user accessible. It is preinstalled but unlike the older models, they are not truly user accessible. This means that if clogs occur in the head there is considerable work involved to flush the head out.
This also means that the replacement head will only be available from Canon as a non user serviceable part? I could be wrong here.

2. There is no longer a rear feed tray. I like to use both trays in the past as I could load different sizes or colors etc and choose what paper to use. This looks like it is gone.

3. I am left wondering about the chip resettability. Do remember that Canon engineered the printers for HP that use the 564 and 920 etc. So far as best I can determine no resetter have appeared for these printers. The same family of encoding or choice of chips could be in order for the new printers. There is no guarantee that a resetter will appear. You can only keep the fingers crossed.

4. The printers come with non XL versions of the cartridges and this means that a portion of the reservoir is not fillable. Some portion of the tank was retained to allow the use of the optical sensing system. On the XL versions, the complete reservoir is accessible.

I will pick one up soon to flesh out a good refill solution and also saw some MG5320s on clearance. Hmmm... some lucky souls will get those.

Now as Hat has pointed out in another thread of good and bad printers. Well, when the generation AFTER the CLI-8 appeared, we saw that the CLI-8 generation was a real good one compared to the 220/221 or 520/521. Then we saw that the 225/226 or 525/526 introduced opaque cartridges and then realized the 220/221 was better. In as much as we dislike the 225/226 or 525/526..the key quirks are easily resolvable by switching cart bodies from the 220/221. The new printers now look like they come with some real pain in the butt features.

I have yet to pick up my unit yet. If anyone sees any fault in what I have read through in the manuals, let us know.

LET THE HOARDING OF THE 225/226/525/526 series BEGIN!
 

jimbo123

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here's a video of a refill attempt(top method) of the new canon MX922 with the new opaque ink carts. PGI-255/250 and CLI-251s. also shows some cart internals

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1B5hkhcfUw

indicates the CLI-251s have a capacity of 11 mls, but are shipped with starter carts of just 6 ml.

ink monitoring needs to be disabled since no resetter available yet. also no mention of addressing print head issues.

looks like canon is taking their best shot at shutting down the "bad boy" re-fillers

now the Q is how many backup PGI5/CLI8 and CLI220/CLI221 printers are really too many to have......

J

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Printers: Canon MP830, IP4500, MX700, MX860, MX870, MP980
Method: German Durchstich Method
Ink: Hobbicolors and OCP
Misc: Squeeze bottles - so much easier than syringes
 

The Hat

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Your reports on the MG5420 will make interesting reading regarding the refilling of the 250/251 carts,
you may also have to get a new set of XL cartridges to help with your experiments.

The video link provided by jimbo123 shows just how awkward Canon have made their new printers for the refillers
and the onboard chip looks to be irreplaceable (No room for an ARC).

I wasnt to impressed by video and could see a lot of problems arising out of using that particular refill method,
over/under filling, not covering the air maze and not weighing the cartridges either.

Any information you gain Mike will be invaluable and all eyes will be watching to see just how difficult
it will be to maintain these printers using the refill method instead of the new very expensive cartridges.

I can only agree with Mike, STOCK up on these printers that use the 225 cartridges
because I can see the over filling of the 251 cartridges a major problem
which can lead to print head failure resulting in having to dump your nice new printer.

Here is a list of some of the printers that use the 525/225 cartridges.

iP6650, iP4950, MG8220, MG5320, MG8120 and MG5220, the earlier models using the 221 carts are not listed,
and of course there are still quite a few printers which still use the CLI-8 cartridges.

Snap Snap.
Happy Shopping guys..
 

PeterBJ

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mikling wrote:

...If anyone sees any fault in what I have read through in the manuals, let us know.
These new printers were introduced a couple of months in Europe before the were introduced in the American market. Druckerchannel has done some tests and given some info. Everything in your preliminary info seems in line with the info from Druckerchannel.de.

But I wonder why Druckerchannel.de didn't mention the permanent printhead. I think they test the printers from a "normal" user's point of view, so I look forward to a report from a refiller's point of view.

The new PGI-x50/CLI-x51 cartridges look similar to the opaque PGI-x25/CLI-x26 cartridges, so I think they will be no more difficult to refill. I think your instruction for topfill will work well, with the added step of checking level in the ink chamber using a wooden toothpick as a dipstick. I have used this method to successfully refill the also opaque HP 364/564 XL cartridges. I have also successfully refilled a CLI-521 M cartridge using the German method and watching the prism/window at the bottom of the cartridge, to see when the ink chamber was full. Link to my German refill test here: http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=62385#p62385

Now is the time for instructions for refill of these dreaded opaque cartridges both x26/x26 and x50/x51, so I am doing some tests and look forward to your suggestions for refill.

The Hat wrote:

...I wasnt to impressed by video...
Neither was I, I have seen much better refill videos produced by some forum members.
 

mikling

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Here are some intial discoveries. I could not see any instructions in the manual about removing the printhead. So I proceeded to see if it can be done and the answer is YES. You simply pull on the front bar and then the printhead can be removed in a rotating fashion following tracks on the side rail.

If you look carefully you'll see the PG seal is missing in some photos it dropped out while handling the printhead. Hmmmmm..

Timing strip is hard to reach. Canon does test with color cartridges during assembly and then installs a new printhead inside the printer. The ink inlet screensdo not appear to be SS anymore.

Initial batch of pics.
5420_1_zpsa815dc03.jpg

5420_2_zps7665ee01.jpg

5420_13_zps93101c87.jpg

5420_3_zps8dcfc409.jpg

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5420_5_zps22d81a14.jpg

5420_6_zps64357283.jpg

5420_7_zps284c25be.jpg

5420_8_zps7571fe16.jpg

5420_9_zps19eadd55.jpg

5420_10_zps3a9c36b0.jpg

5420_11_zps01a469f0.jpg

5420_12_zps974820e2.jpg
 

mikling

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I did some quick swab tests.

All new colors. The 221 and 521 were different from the CLI-8 colors. The 226 and 526 followed the same colors as the 221.
These 251 colors are all different from both the CLI-8 and 221 Compatibility testing is in order here.

5420swabs_zps91107e72.jpg
 

Ant

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ink outlet port is wider.. has different flow characteristics? yet the port it mates to in the printer is round and not elongated... perhaps it aids in sliding into the printer with the lugs either side of the cartridge helping to apply downward force between the cartridge outlet and the printer ink inlet.
 

mikling

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I guess you didn't notice that the inlet ports on the printhead is the same though...same round shape. Look carefully.
 

mikling

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Started to perform some test printing and the color with the OEM ink on the MG5420 is tending towards cool as opposed to Canon's long time preference to tend to warmth.
What is more interesting is that that output when no color matching is done is odd. Most times, the printer firmware and ink is optimized so that the output with no color adjustments tries to get the greys correct. In this printer, with OEM ink, the greys in this mode is brown in tone...but the colors are good. Now this testing is done with the hugely popular Kirkland Professional Glossy and Canon paper might be better but the greys are so off I am shocked. If the printer driver is put back into managing color, the grey returns. This indicates that huge corrections are being processed by the driver ( in a limited area) and that custom profiles may not work as one hopes on these machines. Is this to mess up custom profile algorithms that assume a linear output and color shifts that affect all colors...hmmm

The other thing that comes up is this. That most of the ink contained in the original cartridges are in the sponge. The cut down reservoir is tiny. If one uses the German method to refill, the ink in the reservoir would be quickly used up nearly immediately saturating the sponge. (The length of the reservoir is exactly the length of the optical window). This would require filling multiple times and inverting to resaturate each time to get the sponge resaturated. Given that the reservoir is tiny, the best method will be the topfill to ensure that the sponge is saturated to what it is supposed to hold...the user is going to need it.
 
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