Thoughts After 3 Months Using Pro-100

Firstly, just love this printer. Colour is very good, and most importantly I get predictable colours that I can repeat every time I print. Especially enjoy the more controllable black and white images now that we have black and two greys.

Does anybody find it slower than the Pro9000Mk11. Intuitively it seems slower to me. Doesn't worry me. If it is slower, the advantages mentioned above, are a preferred trade off to speed.

METERING INK TANKS
Since starting end of July, I have burned through original set of OEM carts, and refilled twice before getting the red resetter. Refilled means topping all carts when first colour empties in the transparent ink chamber.

Half way through the second top up the red resetter arrived and I topped up again, including resetting all carts to full.

I now notice huge discrepancy between the actual cart contents and the screen display showing the printer's reading of cart usage.

On average the screen display gives half a cart more ink showing than appears in the ink tank side of the carts when I inspect them visually.

Anybody else have the same result?

Possibly the printer considers the ink content on the sponge side to be the remaining half cart.

I am inclined to refill all eight carts when the first one is empty on the clear side. Seems the safest to me.

Anybody have different opinion?

Roy you’re doing everything right so don’t stop because your results and enjoyment
of your printer are the proof of that.

The on screen ink monitoring is only suppose to be just a gauge and not meant to be very precise,
it’s only when the printer shows low ink should you take any notice of your ink levels
and then react by refilling, don't wait till a cartridge is empty..

Roy Sletcher said:

METERING INK TANKS
Since starting end of July, I have burned through original set of OEM carts, and refilled twice before getting the red resetter. Refilled means topping all carts when first colour empties in the transparent ink chamber.

Half way through the second top up the red resetter arrived and I topped up again, including resetting all carts to full.

I now notice huge discrepancy between the actual cart contents and the screen display showing the printer's reading of cart usage.

On average the screen display gives half a cart more ink showing than appears in the ink tank side of the carts when I inspect them visually.


Anybody else have the same result?

Click to expand...

When new, you surely noticed that the liquid Chamber seemed like it was never going to go down. As soon as you removed on of the lower level carts, capped the exit port, removed the ball, the ink level on the liquid side dropped abruptly. From now one, when the liquid side shows it is down half way, that does not at all mean that the ink indicator should show 50%.
The is a LOT of ink in the sponge side even when the liquid side hits the empty level.
Top off all you carts when any is declared empty. You've been doing this already so just continue what you are already doing and you will be fine.

Now that you are pretty much running on the PC inks, how does a print compare to the same one printed with pure OEM?

I've not reach the point where I've even topped off all the carts, been sick as a dog for about two weeks so much to my despair no printing has been done.

Joe

jtoolman said:

When new, you surely noticed that the liquid Chamber seemed like it was never going to go down. As soon as you removed on of the lower level carts, capped the exit port, removed the ball, the ink level on the liquid side dropped abruptly. From now one, when the liquid side shows it is down half way, that does not at all mean that the ink indicator should show 50%.
The is a LOT of ink in the sponge side even when the liquid side hits the empty level.
Top off all you carts when any is declared empty. You've been doing this already so just continue what you are already doing and you will be fine.

Now that you are pretty much running on the PC inks, how does a print compare to the same one printed with pure OEM?

I've not reach the point where I've even topped off all the carts, been sick as a dog for about two weeks so much to my despair no printing has been done.

Joe

Click to expand...

Thanks for the comments Joe,

Hope you start to feel better soon. You set a pretty grueling schedule in this and other forums.

Have uploaded my ink level display which shows K and Grey as empty - correctly.
Y, PC, and LGY are also running on empty but show half full or better.
C and M are shown as full when in fact they are less than quarter full.

At this stage I will refill and top up, rather than risk running dry.

Certainly the displayed levels have little connection with reality, and means that I cannot rely on their accuracy. Consequently I live with excessive visual checking, which in turn leads to increased cleaning cycles.

I was wondering if other had same experience of erratic ink level display. Given that a miscalculation can fry a print head I was hoping for a more accurate indicator.

As far as the IS ink colour is concerned. I profile all my papers using colormunki, and have not run comparison tests. Intuitively I note extremely close results between OEM and IS inks. I think the close colour match is an IS strength. OCP seems to be better in longevity or fading but with a more disparate colour match. At least based on OCP user comments, I have not used their inks.

One last question if anybody wishes to comment regarding the now available firmware upgrade to version 1.1. Somebody posted here, or elsewhere, a cautionary note that is could screw up resetting or ink monitoring, etc, etc. It was all very vague with no references or empirical data to support the cautionary comments. Has any reliable information been supplied that 1.1 is bad for our printer's health or was it more conjecture than fact?

Happy Printing to all Pro-100 users!

Roy Sletcher

Roy Sletcher said:

View attachment 114
At this stage I will refill and top up, rather than risk running dry.

Certainly the displayed levels have little connection with reality, and means that I cannot rely on their accuracy. Consequently I live with excessive visual checking, which in turn leads to increased cleaning cycles.

I was wondering if other had same experience of erratic ink level display. Given that a miscalculation can fry a print head I was hoping for a more accurate indicator.

Click to expand...

Unless there is a change in the ink monitoring system in your printer from other Canon printers then the visual inspection of carts and what the software demonstrates as fill level is typical Canon behavior.

There may be a lag in the software warning compared to what you see in the actual cartridge BUT there is no issue when it comes to the printer's ink monitoring system marking a cartridge as empty even though there is ink left in the sponge as long as the cartridge was filled to OEM levels or more.

Please let that last sentence be a guide and reassurance. Unless the cartridge leaks ink (more likely to occur with incomplete seal of top fill hole) or the ink monitoring system fails (never heard this on the forum), as long as you refill to OEM ink levels or greater then you can be confident the ink monitoring system will stop printing and warn you of a so-called "empty" cartridge BEFORE the cartridge is truly empty. This is the way Canon has designed the system - to provide a measure of safety for the print head and the customer.

Some people do refill well before the printer throws up an "empty cartridge" warning. If they do not fill cartridges to OEM fill levels or greater then this is wise. But it isn't necessary if you fill properly. I have never had a cartridge be marked empty AFTER ink has run out on my MP830 that uses cartridges similar to yours. to put another way, I have never had a print head failure due to a lack of ink from a truly empty cartridge.

I do agree with the others that you will save ink in the sort and long run if you top off all cartridges (or replace all cartridges) when you need to refill even one cartridge. The reason is a reset chip on the cartridge you just refilled will trigger a new cartridge purge cycle for all the cartridges, at least that is how Canon has behaved up until now. I have no data to suggest your printer behaves differently.

One last question if anybody wishes to comment regarding the now available firmware upgrade to version 1.1. Somebody posted here, or elsewhere, a cautionary note that is could screw up resetting or ink monitoring, etc, etc. It was all very vague with no references or empirical data to support the cautionary comments. Has any reliable information been supplied that 1.1 is bad for our printer's health or was it more conjecture than fact?

Click to expand...

As with most any hardware upgrade, unless there is something you need fixed by an upgrade or a function that you need from the upgrade then do not upgrade the firmware. Don't fix what isn't broken.

Let others upgrade ahead of you and learn from their experiences. The forum will catch wind of an upgrade issue if it occurs. If not then we'll have The Hat take one on the chin and do the upgrade for the sake of the community.

stratman said:

Unless there is a change in the ink monitoring system in your printer from other Canon printers then the visual inspection of carts and what the software demonstrates as fill level is typical Canon behavior.

There may be a lag in the software warning compared to what you see in the actual cartridge BUT there is no issue when it comes to the printer's ink monitoring system marking a cartridge as empty even though there is ink left in the sponge as long as the cartridge was filled to OEM levels or more.

Please let that last sentence be a guide and reassurance. Unless the cartridge leaks ink (more likely to occur with incomplete seal of top fill hole) or the ink monitoring system fails (never heard this on the forum), as long as you refill to OEM ink levels or greater then you can be confident the ink monitoring system will stop printing and warn you of a so-called "empty" cartridge BEFORE the cartridge is truly empty. This is the way Canon has designed the system - to provide a measure of safety for the print head and the customer.

Some people do refill well before the printer throws up an "empty cartridge" warning. If they do not fill cartridges to OEM fill levels or greater then this is wise. But it isn't necessary if you fill properly. I have never had a cartridge be marked empty AFTER ink has run out on my MP830 that uses cartridges similar to yours. to put another way, I have never had a print head failure due to a lack of ink from a truly empty cartridge.

I do agree with the others that you will save ink in the sort and long run if you top off all cartridges (or replace all cartridges) when you need to refill even one cartridge. The reason is a reset chip on the cartridge you just refilled will trigger a new cartridge purge cycle for all the cartridges, at least that is how Canon has behaved up until now. I have no data to suggest your printer behaves differently.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the info Stratman, very useful.

Your description is consistent with my own observations. I think the excessive time lag before the on screen display updated was the cause of my uncertainty.

Having succeeded in "frying" a couple of print heads over the last three years I tend to be somewhat "anal" about clean nozzle checks. Canon doesn't do us any favours by making even a good nozzle check somewhat feint.

Thanks for info, all good stuff.

Roy Sletcher

stratman said:

As with most any hardware upgrade, unless there is something you need fixed by an upgrade or a function that you need from the upgrade then do not upgrade the firmware. Don't fix what isn't broken.

Let others upgrade ahead of you and learn from their experiences. The forum will catch wind of an upgrade issue if it occurs. If not then we'll have The Hat take one on the chin and do the upgrade for the sake of the community.

Click to expand...

Understand and agree with your comment.

However, hardware companies have been known to surreptitiously fix defects they have not publicly acknowledged.

I was hoping the firmware upgrade may be for the greater good of all, but will hold off for a while.

Roy Sletcher

The latest hardware upgrade that was put onto my Canon Pro 1 printer by the Canon service centre
was only to improve and increase their annoying pop ups
when using the printer with the ink monitoring disabled.

It disabled the code for entering the printer service mode also,
which was available to me before this unnecessary upgrade took place.

So my advice to all you guys is to avoid a firmware upgrade like the plague..

So my advice to all you guys is to avoid a firmware upgrade like the plague..

Click to expand...

From The Hat's lips to your ears.

Good thing he's not the drooling type!