Printers

Alas, my Canon i9900 has finally died. May it rest in peace..... I have to look in the box in the basement, but I'm pretty sure it was 15+ years old, maybe almost 20. It was getting hard to find inks, but of course now I have a bunch I can't use. My son wanted a print of an image from the Olympic Peninsula, 2009. The prints went all magenta.... nothing helped...then lines in the prints... I had to euthanize it, sob!. 

I got the Canon Pro-200 since it is still pigment inks and the closest to the i9900. Larger than 13x19 would be nice but not necessary. Made a nice print of this shot, so all is good again. Looks great. Not sure it is BETTER than the i9900 but just as good. The setup went smoothly. For those in a similar printing space, it seems to be a good instrument.                  Regards.

Found the reviews on line from 2004, so yea that is about right........

On my monitor there is a little bit too much Cyan. It could be that I haven't calibrated the monitor in quite a while. I was under the assumption that the PRO-200 used Dye based Ink not pigment ?

My bad, yes dye based. I have stayed with dye based for fear of clogging when not using the printer for weeks. The i9900 never gave me problem with its ....dye based...inks.

Thx

The pro 200 is dye based, a successor to the Pro 100 that I used for years. If it's better than the 100,  it's a great printer. I switched to a pigment-based Prograf 1000 only for two reasons: size, and the fact that I was exhibiting and selling prints and therefore needed archival prints. The prints from the 100 were very, very similar in quality, and I didn't have a single problem with clogging even if I  left the printer idle for months. The prograf hasn't had a clog that required my intervention, but when I haven't used it for a while, it sometimes uses a lot of expensive ink running a self-cleaning program. I still think dye is the best solution for a lot of people.

The Best Buy around my area had a Canon Pro-100 on display the other day, selling for about $479. It's a big heavy printer, but I prefer that to the plasticky kind that tend to fall apart after about a year of use like my defunct Epson R2400.  That printer gave me so many clogging headaches that I switched to Dye Sub. I was hoping that BestBuy had the Pro-200 on display so I could guage the build quality, but unfortunatelly they didn't. They had an entire row of Epson Printers, and another entire row of HP printers, but nothing on the Canon except the Pro-100.    

The Pro-200 is a 32 pounder. Seems pretty solid. I was surprised how much bigger it is than the i9900 it replaced. Feels like its not going anywhere. I hope I get 15+ years out of it. 

I loved my 9900 and when the print head went bad it made more sense to just get a PRO-100. Very happy with it and I'm sure the 200 is as good or better. That said, I spend quite a lot on ink because I only print a couple shots at a sitting. It's probably way more efficient to print a dozen at a sitting because the printer would do less cleaning and fiddling about.

My i9900 could sit for weeks and then just print. I don't recall cleaning protocols triggering. Once about 5 years ago I replaced the print head, and it chugged on. A couple of years ago it started making "metal on metal" dragging noise, but still ran another 2 years or so. I print about 4-10 prints a month, 13x19 inch. I'm hoping for the same on the Pro-200.

I have a Canon Pixma Pro-100 printer, with pigment based inks for several years. I have not experienced any clogged heads. That said, the printer undergoes periodic cleaning cycles, which consume ink even if not printing.

Ed: the Pro-100 has dye inks. Do you have the Pro-10(?) which has the pigment inks?

I have the Canon Pro-100 which is the second one I have had. When I got it it cost about $100 as a special offer if you bought a Canon lens or body. Fantastic value and excellent printer so I am sure the Pro-200 will be great. No cleaning cycles required and no clogging. However as with all printers, they get through the ink really fast. In fact most of the time when I start the printer up it tells me that one of the 8 cartridges needs replacing or will do soon. That's how they afford to effectively give away the printer itself since they know you need the inks.

Mis-typed. I have  Pro-10, definitely pigment based. My daughter-in-law has a Pro-100, which is very nice, but better suited for art projects, a la water colors. AFIK, she's has no problems with clogging either. I've owned several Epsons, with problems. In the worst case, the Canon print head can be replaced at home. The Epson must be returned to the factory.

2 hours ago, Ed_Ingold said:

My daughter-in-law has a Pro-100, which is very nice, but better suited for art projects, a la water colors. AFIK, she's has no problems with clogging either. I've owned several Epsons, with problems. In the worst case, the Canon print head can be replaced at home. The Epson must be returned to the factory.

 

Water colors? I did a side-by-side comparison of the same image printed on my Prograf Pro 1000 and my Pro-100, when I still had the 100. The prints were very, very similar. I've exhibited prints done on the Pro 100. The big difference is durability: the dye prints fade far faster.

One can indeed replace Canon print heads, but they are pricey. The Prograf Pro 1000 currently sells for $1250. The print head is about $700.

Maintenance can easily exceed the purchase price for professional equipment. Consumer gear is usually disposable. A set of ink cartridges for the Pro-10 is pushing $150, and I'm on my 6th set. The printer is too large for a table, and too heavy for a light cart. I had to purchase an heavy-duty cart for it. The plus side is an Ethernet connection, not hobbled by short, heavy cables or often slow WiFi.

A calumny against the PIXMA dye inks and the PRO-100! I agree with Paddler, the PRO-100 produces prints quite as good as the PRO-10 or my previous Epson pigment printer, but the ink is dye, not pigment, so image fastness is not as good, although behind glass who really knows as PIXMA dyes are meant to last 100 years behind glass. Pigment inks may produce blacker blacks, but dye inks may produce stronger colors.  There is also variability as to which you might prefer, depending on the type of paper you want to use. For the Canon PRO-100 obtaining a replacement head was almost impossible, even though in theory they were available. The price of one on ebay (couldn't get one from Canon) was a lot more than the price of a new printer, so I got a new printer (at $100). The inks are always way, way more expensive than anyone likes. I remain surprised that printing remains a rather more complex process than it needs to be, but then of course, people are not really printing like they used to, if at all.

45 minutes ago, Ed_Ingold said:

Maintenance can easily exceed the purchase price for professional equipment. ....A set of ink cartridges for the Pro-10 is pushing $150, and I'm on my 6th set. The printer is too large for a table, and too heavy for a light cart. I had to purchase an heavy-duty cart for it. 

Indeed. That's one reason I suggest to people who don't need archival prints that they consider a printer that uses dye inks, particularly the pro-200 or its predecessors. My Prograf 1000 uses a lot of ink for self-cleaning. It can't be moved without draining all of the ink from the lines, which is a large percentage of the total and also requires a bunch of waste tanks. I used the Pro 100 and a 9000 II for years with never a hiccup, and they needed only brief self-cleaning even after months of sitting idle. I changed to the Prograf because I put a small number of prints up for sale, and I wanted those to be archival. I also wanted to be able to print larger than 13 x 19, which is the limit for Canon's dye printers.

I am very happy with my Canon PRO-200 printer. A worthy replacement to my departed i9900.

My dad gave me a Pro-9000 seven years ago. 

(He has a Pro-100 and MX-920.)

It sat in the basement, unused and unplugged, until a few days ago.

I plugged it, and did the ink test.  Eight perfectly shaded rectangles.

Three inks are low, the other five almost full, so says the ink report.

I got it out to print house plans, black lines and white background, which it does well.

I was expecting to need a new printhead, or soak one overnight in water.

Update....... No surprise. Still happy with the Canon PRO-200.