A Glance at the New Canon 200 & 300... !

The Hat · Jun 1, 2021

These 2 machines are a very expensive addition to the Canon Pro range and will give their owners the greatest colour and quality output that has been the hallmark of all the previous Pro printers that said, whether they will be very popular here on this Refill forum remains to be seen, and only time will tell..

From what I can see there is limit as to how far you can actually refill these printers, the Pro 200 dye ink machine needs the use of CLl-42 or CLl-8 carts to achieve a reasonable and accrete refill, with of course a chip change to make these carts acceptable to the printer.

But you’re going to need more than a change of carts and new 3rd party inks in order to print cheaply, now to get decent quality colour reproduction you may also need to generated your own profiles. Your saving will start to diminish before you print a single sheet.

Next you must disable ink monitoring to get this whole package to work together, but and here’s the rub, you’re going to have to check all the carts daily visually to insure you have sufficient ink left in the carts to complete your print job.

If your happy to do this on your brand new expensive printer then so be it, but it will also mean you’re going to be using a lot more ink than normal with purge cycles taking place every time you remove a cart to check the ink levers, this is precautionary to protect your print head.

Moving onto the pigment Pro 300, this printer will be a little easier to refill because you won’t have to exchange any of the carts, but unlike the dye Pro 200 you’ll have to remove and weight every cart before each print run, because you won’t be able to see how much ink is left inside a given cart.

To me, all of this just to save a little cash would be a bridge to far, but if you still want to save on inks then stick with the Pro 100 or Pro 10 as a far better option and solution, both these machines have good refilling support available now without risking a new print head purchase every 6 months. Try finding a Pro 100 or Pro 10 second hand, even with a damaged print head, there’re still well worth it..

This is just my two cent worth..

P.S. If you continue to print without ink monitoring, there is also something else to consider, these new machines have live active memories and may not like what you’re doing and can give a fatal error for the slightest reason, if you make the wrong move, and your new printer will be finished..

stratman · Jun 1, 2021

The Hat said:
machines have live active memories

Which of the Canon printers do you know have this "feature".

Artur5 · Jun 1, 2021

As a side note, @mikling showed us in José Rodríguez latest live stream that the new machines are clearly some steps below the Pro-10/100 in build quality and sturdiness.
I suspected that fact already after reading that the Pro200/300 weight 14 kg. while the older models were 20 kg.

The Hat · Jun 1, 2021

stratman said:
Which of the Canon printers do you know have this "feature".

Both, so they may not tolerate running with ink monitoring disabled indefinitely..

palombian · Jun 1, 2021

As already been said by others "buy these printers only if you have to".

You maybe must not check the ink level before every print but after a certain time and/or number of prints.
An additional purge cycle every month or so still will be largely compensated by the gain by changing all carts together.

Me too I do not feel 100% at ease with disabling the ink monitoring until proof of innocence.

On local sites both printers are offered now and then around € 250.

At this moment the PRO-1000 is a better candidate for refilling than the PRO-300.

Many people will go for Ecotank type printers too, although most are not optimized for photos.

stratman · Jun 2, 2021

The Hat said:
Both, so they may not tolerate running with ink monitoring disabled indefinitely..

Canon has a model called "Both"? :ep

Must be blogging from the Pub again. :idunno

The Hat · Jun 2, 2021

palombian said:
You maybe must not check the ink level before every print but after a certain time and/or number of prints.
An additional purge cycle every month or so still will be largely compensated by the gain by changing all carts together.

The problem us humans have is memory, like when was the last time I checked the ink levels, ah sure printing a half dozen more won’t do any harm, maybe not, but those forgetful habits will get you into trouble soon than you think.

Get into a regular routine of checking the carts every time your turn her on is the best way to be sure you have enough ink to start the day or replace all the carts after a print run before shutting her down at night..

3rd party ink is reasonably cheap compared to OEM for now, and that gap is closing all the time when using larger OEM ink tanks, and say go 2 weeks or more and then ask yourself did I check the inks last time ?.. Remember print heads are always expensive.

These new printers (BOTH) are really great to own but only if you can afford to run them on OEM inks, not doing so may lead you into a Cul-De-Sac of unexpected additional costs, we all know how to refill and run our printers cheaply, but running blind was never a recommended safe option in the past.. !

palombian said:
As already been said by others "buy these printers only if you have to".

That is be my opinion too..

stratman · Jun 2, 2021

The Hat said:
These new printers (BOTH)

Funny you should capitalize the word "both". I wonder why you did that???

I asked you what printers - ALL the printers - you know that have the Canon hidden bomb (volatile memory) you have written about. Your answer "Both" is meaningless unless Canon makes a model named "both".

Rough time coming home from the Pub this morning?

The Hat · Jun 2, 2021