Canon Pixma Pro-1 Printer problem

[gavin rankin]

My Pixma Pro-1 has been idle for several weeks but when recently I put in a complete set of new genuine Canon pgi-29 cartridges, every one showed a permanent red light suggesting they were empty (they are not!).
The printer keeps making noises like a cleaning process but nothing changes the lights on the cartridges and nothing will print.
Help anyone????? Please?

[Manfred M]

Looks like a call to Canon tech support and possibly shipping it out for repair is in order.

[gavin rankin]

Oh Yuk! that sounds expensive.
I was hoping someone out there could help with a DIY cure?

[Manfred M]

Oh Yuk! that sounds expensive.
I was hoping someone out there could help with a DIY cure?

Yes it is. I had a "pro" photo printer die back in the summer. About 8 years old and the estimated repair cost exceeded the price if a new printer. $ CAD1600 later I'm printing again... Fortunately Epson was running a sale at the time and I got a $CAD 400 rebate so the pain was a little less intense.

Have you tried a cold restart? Unplug it for a minute or so and plug it in again. It sounds like you've tried to re-seat the cartridges and that didn't work.

[Round Tuit]

Hi Gavin,
My Canon pro-100 died last year. I called tech support and after running a number of diagnostic routine over the phone, the tech rep told me that the main board was gone and that If I shipped them the unit they would fix it for a flat $260 plus shipping cost. He then informed me that It would be better for me to buy a new one for $350 because that way I would get free shipping plus a new set of ink cartridges worth about $160.
So I wrote to the president of Canon Canada to express my disappointment with their support policies and I suggested that I would buy a new one for a nominal charge but was not prepared to pay anywhere near what the wanted for the repair.
The next day, I got a call from the manager of their support facility advising me that they would ship me a new printer free of charge.
Andre

[DanK]

could it be a clogged head? They are user-replaceable on many Canon printers, but at least for the printer I have, they are very expensive.

[gavin rankin]

Thank you Manfred, Andre and Dan.
Still no further and now wondering if I aught to look at a replacement - maybe Epson?
Gavin

[DanK]

I would speak with Canon service first. It may be something other than a clogged head, and there may be other things you can try before giving up.

I wasn't able to figure out which print head your printer uses. Canon still lists the printer, but B&H no longer stocks it. I think it was replaced by the Prograf Pro 1000 (which I have). So, you would have to call canon anyway to find out how much it would cost for a head, if that is what it is.

BTW, I don't think the inks are the same in the Prograf 1000 (they are labeled PFI, not PGI, and the canister shape is different, so you would have to toss the inks if you bought a Prograf. I don't know what the less expensive Pro-10 uses, but it is still on the market, so you could check.

Re a replacement: I just went through the process of selecting one. I wanted a larger format (17 x 22), so my choice might not be relevant to you. The main contenders in that format are the Epson P800 and the Canon Prograf Pro 1000. From the reviews, it seemed clear that they are very similar in print quality. The Epson can take rolls of paper, while the Canon cannot. My reading of the reviews is that in other respects, the Canon is very slightly better for my purposes. So far, I have been very pleased (with one exception I'll note below). However, printers in that size are expensive: the Epson is about $1200 at B&H, while the Canon is $1300 (although there are occasional Canon rebates of $200-300).

You haven't said what you print or for what purpose. I switched from the Pro-100 (dye) to the Prograf 1000 solely for two reasons: to have the larger format and archival inks. I wanted archival inks primarily because I intend to start exhibiting prints for sale over the coming year. Absent those two factors, I would have been happy with my Pro-100. It creates gorgeous prints, and when hung out of direct light behind UV glass, they last long enough that I have almost never needed to replace one. Manfred's experience was different, but I had the more common experience: my dye-based printers (I have owned 5 of them) simply never clogged. I sometimes left my dedicated photo printer idle for months on end, and it always started right back up. In contrast, pigment inks, while better in this respect than they used to be, still pose problems. I already have a considerable amount of expensive ink sitting in the collection tank of the Prograf because of its automatic head cleaning.

[Manfred M]

Gavin - I know the Epson entry level "pro" printers reasonably well having owned a Stylus Pro 3880 for a number of years before replacing it with a SureColor P800 last year. I've also had the opportunity to work with the Stylus Pro 3800 (the 3880's predecessor) and the P600, the P800's "little brother". These are / were all marketed to the low volume market and were built with that in mind. The other models in the Epson line have been designed and marketed to people who print daily and weekly and there have been reports of issues of nozzle clogging if these units are not run quite regularly. I suspect Canon (and the large HP) higher volume printers might have similar issues, but don't know anyone who uses these. The only reason I mention HP at all is that they make some very excellent but expensive wider carriage printers. These are targeted at the high end commercial market and are out of the price range and size range for most home users. HP does not make smaller photo printers that would be of interest to most home users or small scale commercial photographers.

All of these printers use pigment based inks. These are essentially very, very finely ground minerals that are held in a liquid suspension that the print head deposits onto the print medium. These are held on the medium by mechanical means; the paper swells ever so slightly when the ink is deposited and when the paper dries, it shrinks and mechanically bonds the ink particles to the paper. Pigment based inks tend to be a bit more moisture and abrasion resistant than dye based inks. Dyes based inks, as Dan has mentioned, don't have the same longevity that pigment based inks do. They tend to deliver more brilliant colours but don't have blacks that are quite as deep as pigment based inks.

The main difference between Epson and Canon (and HP) printers is that Epson is owned by Seiko-Epson Corporation and use an ultrasonic technology that came from the watch industry in their print heads. They use a principle called "cavitation" to deliver the ink from print head to paper. This is a process that does not heat up and boil the ink, so Epson has a bit more flexibility in ink design that Canon does. Canon and HP use thermal heads that essentially boil the ink and that sprays the ink onto the medium. The native resolution is the key difference here; Epson printers have a native resolution of 360 dots per inch (dpi) whereas Canon printers print at a native resolution of 300 dpi. Is this difference noticeable? Yes, but only under very specific conditions when shot with very high resolution sensors and lenses that have been shot using a very sturdy tripod. I have definitely seen the difference, but only in large very large prints when pixel peeping.

There is one other important consideration where, in my view, the latest generation of Epson printers excel, and that is the new UltraChrome HD ink set. In the past, the "gold standard" in tonal range in B&W prints was always the traditional silver halide based printing process was that ink jet printers could not reproduce the deep blacks. These new Epson inks are better than the traditional paper and I definitely notice a difference between what I was able to do with the 3880 and the P800.

The Epson printers do have two downsides. The first is that they use a single nozzle for depositing both matte black and photo black ink, so there is some ink wasted when switching between matte and lustre / glossy photo papers. I tend to work in runs of one paper type then the other, so the impact is fairly minor. The second is that Epson print heads are expensive, so if one fails outside of the warranty period, you may as well buy a new printer. They are not user replaceable either, so the printer has to go back to Epson for repair. I understand that Canon print heads are less expensive and are often user replaceable.

[DanK]

Just to add to what Manfred said:

The Prograf print head is user replaceable. In fact, installing it is part of the initial setup. However, they are pricey. B&H currently sells them about half the cost of a new printer: $675.

The reviews I read found only very slight differences in print quality between the Epson P800 and the Canon Prograf. One review asserted that the Canon gave slightly greater detail in the shadows of monochrome prints, but the overall impression I got is that unless one put prints side by side and hunted for differences, one wouldn't notice which was which. The Canon keeps both blacks loaded and switches based on your selection of paper type. It also coats the entire photo with a clear coat ("color optimizer"), which I think is intended to reduce bronzing.

[Manfred M]

The reviews I read found only very slight differences in print quality between the Epson P800 and the Canon Prograf. One review asserted that the Canon gave slightly greater detail in the shadows of monochrome prints, but the overall impression I got is that unless one put prints side by side and hunted for differences, one wouldn't notice which was which.

Interesting because the printers I have spoken to have told me that their testing shows the opposite is true. They have a long-time connection with a large bricks & mortar camera store that sells both lines of printers and do some testing when the newest models show up on the floor there.

The Canon keeps both blacks loaded and switches based on your selection of paper type. It also coats the entire photo with a clear coat ("color optimizer"), which I think is intended to reduce bronzing.

The comment one photographer I know who has used both Canon and Epson printers has told me that he finds that the additional cost of using the clear coat is more expensive than the ink loss of switching between photo black and matte black. I also know another photographer who has two P800 printers and has one dedicated to printing matte paper and one dedicated to printing lustre / baryta papers. He has a much higher print throughput than I do and has told me that this also gives him redundancy should he ever have a print failure. I know a number of photographer who use a second camera body as backup, but this is the first instance I know of someone using a second printer as a backup.

[DanK]

the additional cost of using the clear coat is more expensive than the ink loss of switching between photo black and matte black.

Perhaps. I was more concerned with the nuisance. In any rate, cost factor that concerns me was pointed out by someone else when I posted a link to Red River's estimates of printing costs per page: the ink wasted in routine head-cleaning. This is an issue for any pigment printer, regardless of brand, and it is one reason I think many people would be better off sticking with dye-based printing. I never had to give it a moment's thought when I used dye printers.

[Manfred M]

Perhaps. I was more concerned with the nuisance.

There is no nuisance per se other than having to wait an extra minute or two to start printing. Both cartridges sit in the machine, but the feed line and print head need to be cleared and that takes a bit of time and ink. This is done automatically by the printer software.

[gavin rankin]

Manfred and Dan: Wow! what a huge amount of information to digest.
Very grateful.
Thank you.

[Manfred M]

I recently bought an Canon Pixma Pro9000 Mark II and since the rebate available when you purchase it with an Canon camera, it's almost free, lots of people are snapping them up and selling them off on Craigslist at around $120. It's not a Pro-1, however the print quality is an enormous leap from the printers that I'm accustomed to, and is even superior to the original $400 printer that my family owned for about 12 years.

Although I'm not certain I'd say it's in line with what's listed as the $450 "MSRP" however it's certainly more than I anticipated from a printer that costs $120. Regarding ink, I'm not able to comment on that since I haven't yet used all of my original tank yet, but that OEM replacements cost around $120 for a set, I'll likely have to use aftermarket replacements that can be found on eBay for less than $20.

A few comments about the printer. What you are seeing here is fairly well known in the photographic community. Printer makers often discount the printers as a vehicle for selling consumables where they make their money. The consumables are the ink cartridges and the paper being used.

This model of printer uses dye based inks, rather than the more durable pigment based inks used in higher end photo printers. While dye based inks often have more saturated colours, they are not considered to be archival (the prints don't last as long as pigment inks) and are more susceptible to damage (moisture will make the ink run). It's a good entry level photo printer, but most serious print makers use pigment based printers.

When it comes to inks, your advice on third party ink is a bit dangerous, as in photo printing there are some reputable third party ink suppliers, but they deal primarily in pigment inks. Ink cartridge refillers tend to stick with the black, yellow, magenta and cyan inks only, not the grays and light coloured inks used by photo printers. If you can find someone who does supply them, there is an additional complication. Photo papers use something called a profile that is part of a colour managed workflow (a complex way of saying ensuring that the colours print correctly). Paper suppliers create profiles for each individual paper type based on the printer model / ink set used. Reputable third party ink suppliers produce these; cartridge refill services do not. Without this information, your prints won't look anything like what you see on your computer screen as the printer won't have the proper instructions on how to mix the inks properly for the paper you are using. If you own a photospectrometer (a very expensive instrument that costs a lot more than this printer), you can make your own paper / ink set profiles.