newbie with i9950

[Blame]

This is a big thank you from a new member.
Your forum has already helped me with a few decisions on my new (to me) Canon i9950.
I recently paid 45 for it as having a imperfect print head.

Decisions made:

1) Order Hobbicolor inks. Sadly posted direct from US. There seams to be no impartial advice for UK supliers.
2) Flush out the tanks with repeated hot water. Fit with stoppers. Then fill with "JR INKJET CARTRIDGE FLUSH INK PRINT HEAD CLEANER"
3) Clean the pads & then soak in head cleaner.
4) Check that the wast pumps are working. If not, dissasemble & hope that the pieces I loose are not too important.
5) Top up the pads with lots of cleaner, park the head & leave to soak for a day.
6) Wipe away cleaner from pads & do a dozen deep cleans.
7) Fill the tanks with new ink, cross my fingers & try a test pattern.
8) Spend a few days doing test paterns & deep cleans.
9) Give up and order a new head for 70.
10) Start pondering how to get the colors to right and where to get cheap A3 paper.

Any comments?

 

[WhiteDog]

My expereience is with the i9900--very similar. I shall start a new thread sometime soon with my experience with a new printhead, which was out of the ordinary.

On the topic of the cheap A3 paper, do you mean for final prints or for proofing? For final prints it is a complex aesthetic choice, not so much on price. Anyway, if price still matters, and you can get product in the UK, try the Inkpress papers.

On the other hand, I find that for compositional proofs, and to ensure ink flow and color, I can run cheap 11x17 office copy paper with insolence. You can set paper type to "matte" if you wish.

Another money-saving trick is to start the printing of a shot and let the printer run about 2" into the job on your good paper, then hit the "cancel printing" box on the printer monitor. Of course, this is not too informative if, for example, a panel of blue sky is across the top, but if you can use a test subject with lots of variety you will get what you need to know by using only a fifth or sixth of a sheet. You can surely see banding this way. Cut the printed part off neatly and use the remainder several times.

My suspicion with these dye-ink heads is that you should not run any indivdual nozzle, or several of them in a dry or clogged condition for any length of time. I cannot say that you will for sure fry your head with many test runs with clogged heads, but I would not personally run a head with missing colors if a few deep cleans did not resolve the problem. I have cleared bad clogs with tanks filled with Windex. Your UK equivalent has been mentioned in another thread.

These A3 Canon units are mechanically robust and the printhead is the most likely part to fail. When my printhead quit I had to decide whether to retire the machine or get a new printhead. I bought the head on the basis that the i9900 is a splendid proofing machine for 13" prints, if for nothing else.

 

[Blame]

WhiteDog

My thanks for your helpfull advice.

I don't think there is an UK equivalent of windex. That is, other posters have comented that UK window cleaners lack amonia. Perhaps a distilled water/amonia mix? I must check my local chemist. If it is going through the nozzles, and not designed for the task, I want it to be as simple a mix as possible. There is always a risk that some component might be sticky or lumpy.

Regarding A3 paper, sadly, for me, price will always matter. Money must be shared between camera, lenses, printer, paper & ink. None get as much as I would like, even if I could ignore such relativly unimportant matters as food & my teanage daughter. That is usefull advice on economising on test paper. I intend to not only use cheap matte paper for composition, but seriously concider if it will work for photographs!

 

[dougsewell]

Hi look at post "UK alternative to Windex?"

Make your own
Doug