i950 clog & next steps with IP4000/refill ink

[weaverinva]

Hi all,

I am such a newcomer here but boy are people friendly and helpful. Thank you for the great content thus far. I have read many a post and I am ready to refill with Hobbicolors or Precision Colors inks in OEM carts. Wow.

Well, here's my tale and any help toward direction on the i950 would be helpful. I recently purchased a used IP4000 and it works well. I will get OEM carts and refill. It has bad generics in it now. Seems okay from a not being clogged mode. I also think I will purchase an IP4500 to ensure refillability into the future for the right time. It seems like a good printer and can still be found unused where as I cannot find many IP4000. Any comments on strategy here for help is immensely appreciated.

So to the real questions comes related to what to do with my i950. It is a great printer but I went toward the IP4000 because I did not yet again want to pay $85 for a print head. I have been using Media Street inks in generic blanks and discarding the ink every year to keep it fresh but nonetheless, even though the last print head lasted 3 years or so, it now has clogges in it. Clearly it seems that I needed better flowing cartridges (read OEM) to not starve the head. This board is doing an amazing work at providing reasonable home printing costs.

Is the i950 worth trying to revive the head? Awhile back when it was under warranty, I had dried tubes and windex etc etc but many of you have been through this before. If I could get an 80-90% of the nozzles going and be sure I could do it if I invested the time then I would but it seems that once clogged, it is hard to recover.

Any comments or advice on the above is appreciated. I use Profile Prism to profile my colors so that is okay. If you recommend getting a different printer as the reasonably easiest refillable printer, I would appreciate that too.

Thank you in advance.

All the best,

Mike Weaver
Shenandoah Valley VA

 

[ghwellsjr]

Unless you are especially sensitive to the slight improvement of a six-color dye ink printer (i950) over a four-color dye ink printer (iP4000), I would recommend against the six-color printer. The only advantage of the two extra dye ink cartridges (photo cyan and photo magenta) are better reproduction of light colors or those that use cyan and magenta in low densities combined with other colors.

In my opinion, the problem is that Canon has favored the photo inks over their darker counterparts and since the dye in them is only a fraction of the concentration of the dye in their darker counterparts, you go through several photo cartridges for each of their darker counterparts. It's a good thing you plan on refilling because otherwise it will cost you a lot to use the i950 (assuming you print a lot of photos).

You can usually easily see the improvement of photos printed with a six-color dye ink printer compared to a four-color dye ink printer when you see them side by side, but when most people see either one in isolation, they won't notice any difference.

I recommend that you keep your eyes open for another iP4000 (eBay, garage and yard sales, thrift shops, friends) instead of going with an iP4500. It's always better to have two of the same thing when you start having problems because then you can swap parts to narrow down the source of the problem.

One other thing: the iP4000 has a pigment black cartridge which is better for printing on plain paper than the dye black cartridge in the i950.

I recommend the Inktec pigment black ink because it will not smear on plain paper after it dries and then gets wet. If you refill with the German method you can just stick a needle on the fat syringe the ink comes in (in small quantities) and you don't even have to transfer ink or clean up your syringe, just cap the needle and put it away until next time. The syringe also prevents drying out of ink in the bottle. You can probably get away with having only one cartridge of each color with this method.

 

[Tin Ho]

Canon i950 (and i960) was a photo printer that has had its days as one of the top dogs. But comparing to today's ip4500 I will choose the new printer. I950 is a slow printer with 2 pico liter droplets. Ip4500 has 1 pico liter. The smaller droplet makes it possible to print light colors comparable to printing with PC and PM ink. There is no incentive to put more money into an old i950 still. Ip4500 is a much better printer than ip4000 by the way. I would choose an ip4500 is both are available to me. Photos printed with ip4500 from my own comparison are more vibrant more saturated than printed on ip4000. For this reason I gave away my ip4000 a long time ago. I believe this has something to do with the Canon driver for this printer.

The best Canon photo printer is no doubt i9900, ip8500 and Pro9000. These printers produce the most saturated colors that are unbeatable. Even the most expensive high end Epson pigment ink printers are no match in that. However, to professionals pigment ink is a must for printing photos despite that not all pigment based ink do not fade as commonly believed. If your goal is beautiful live like glossy vibrant colors of photos you should look for a Canon Pro9000.

 

[weaverinva]

Hi ghwellsjr,

Good comments. Thank you on the Inktec recommendation. I will research and yes, I plan to refill like you said with the german syringe method. Hmmm had not thought of leaving the ink in the syringe. What would I cap the syringe with. I don't know if I have a cap.

Do you think the i950 is worth trying to revive? Oh good comment on the IP4000. I may try for another one. It does not seem the IP4500 has improved that much on the IP4000 in real life photos.

Mike

 

[weaverinva]

Tin Ho,

Thank you as well. Hmmm. Maybe my interest in the IP4000 in over placed. Or perhaps if I profile the IP4000 it will saturate better. I think the i950 is going to the computer recyclers we have here.

I only want a reasonable home printer with refillable inks to keep it cost effective. Then if I want real photos, I would use Dry Creek profiles and send photos through to Costco's machine locally.

Thank you for the comments on the IP4500 and IP4000--very valuable. What type of chip resetter do you use on the IP4500? The IP4600 uses a another cartridge set too, does it not?

Mike

 

[weaverinva]

Oh also, am I right that the IP4000 and IP4500 use the exact same inks even through the IP4500 carts are chipped? Assume I'll need a resetter. Will have to do some research. I would be grateful for any pointers to the good threads. I am sure a quick search will get me the info on the chips. Mike

 

[jflan]

I think much of it is in the eye of the beholder.
I still have 2 functioning iP4000's that I think are great printers.
I even have an iP3000 that spits out great looking direct printed CD's and DVD's from time to time.
There is an iP5000 here that is quite nice, too.

These old warriors keep me so content that my iP4500 and MP610 continue to wait in the wings, both NIB.

 

[ghwellsjr]

Oh also, am I right that the IP4000 and IP4500 use the exact same inks even through the IP4500 carts are chipped? Assume I'll need a resetter. Will have to do some research. I would be grateful for any pointers to the good threads. I am sure a quick search will get me the info on the chips. Mike

No, the chipped cartridge inks are not all the same as the earlier inks. I'm not sure which have changed. But there is another factor to consider: as Tin Ho pointed out, the chipped cartridge printers have nozzles that are half the size of the unchipped versions. I'm suspicious that the ink used in the earlier printers will have more of a tendency to clog the later printers. I have never used any of the newer printers mainly because of the chips. I really don't know what it is like using them but since you already have the iP4000, I think you should stick with it.

 

[ghwellsjr]

Hi ghwellsjr,

Good comments. Thank you on the Inktec recommendation. I will research and yes, I plan to refill like you said with the german syringe method. Hmmm had not thought of leaving the ink in the syringe. What would I cap the syringe with. I don't know if I have a cap.Mike

I was suggesting leaving the needle on the syringe and capping the needle. The needles I got many years ago when I starting refilling had little rubber caps on the ends of them. I don't know whether that is common or not.

Take a look at the "bottles" of Inktec ink (scroll down to the middle of the website):

http://www.inkjetcartridge.com/bci3bci6.html

Those "bottles" have colored plastic caps on them. When you remove the cap, it has a plastic port on it that is identical to the kind you have on a standard syringe so you just press-fit your needle on to it. [EDIT: I recently discovered that the Inktec bottle/syringes have lock on them so you can twist your needle on for a firm fit.] Then the other end of the "bottle" has a plunger. When you get ready to inject some ink, you just remove the rubber cap from the end of the needle and press on the plunger to get as much ink as you need. When you're done, you just put the cap back on the needle. The needle stays on the "bottle". There is never any air that contacts the ink in the "bottle". You never pour any ink from one container to a syringe or back again. If you need more ink than is left in your "bottle", you just remove the needle and stick it on the next "bottle" and press out as little or as much more ink as you need.

NOTE: you can replace the word "bottle" with the word "syringe" in the above explanation.

If I were starting in on re-inking, I would not have a spare cartridge of each color, I would just wait until a cartridge indicates low, pop it out of the printer, inject ink using the German method to refill the reservoir and pop it back in the printer. I would, however, put a piece of tape over the hole in the cartridge that you inject ink through when done. I don't like the potential for air drying out the ink.

 

[weaverinva]

Thank you for all your responses.

Stay well, Mike