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#1: Cost-effective CIS for Canon i950 Author: Jeff, Location: Australia

Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2006 5:28 am
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About 4 months ago I installed a Colorfly (http://www.colorfly.com.cn/cnciss/index.htm) CIS on my Canon i950 workhorse printer - 6 BCI-6 cartridges.

The system was easy to install and within an hour or so was producing perfect prints. It has continued to work non-stop in the intervening period with no problems. Ink provided with system was very high quality producing identical prints to Canon orignial. This unit has given me all the productivity benefits of CIS with no problems and is highly cost-effective.

Upon arrival the Unit was well packed and the inklines did not require priming which probably accounts for why I experienced no problems with installation. Buoyed by my experience I purchased one of their Units for my A3 i9950 Printer which I also use heavily on a daily basis but this is another whole story as I found a significant problem with CIS supporting 8-cartridge systems which I will discuss in another post.

About 2-months ago in sheer frustration I uninstalled my i950-CIS and installed it onto my i9950 printer using original cartridges for the Red and Green. To achieve this I had to seperate all the Ribbon Tubing into individual strands as the layout of the colours on the i9950 is different to the i950. Result it worked perfectly and when I reinstalled the substantailly degraded i950 system back on the i950 it again worked perfectly and has continued to do so for the past 2-months -

In reinstalling I took the following precautions which I had learned from my i9950 experience -

1. I used little silicon gaskets provided by manufacturer to overcome a sealing issue with the Canon Printheads UNDERNEATH the rubber grommets in the Canon Printhead - the manufacturer had recommended installing beneath the Cartridge Head and the rubber grommett but I found the most leak prone spot was beneath the rubber grommett and the plastic print head body (from my i9950 experience).

2. I cut up 6mm plastic tubing from Hardware Shop into six 6mm lengths and used these between the Cartridge lever and cartridge body to maintain 'spring' in the levers to ensure they don't come lose (again from my i9950 experience).

3. I used Vacuum priming method I developed for i9950 which I have posted elsewhere in this forum to re-prime the i950 CIS when re-installing. I have found vacuum priming gets rid of air pockets which is essential to maintain the integrity of the ink strands in the cartridge and ribbon tubing. My experience shows that the vacuum priming tends to degas the ink and ensure high quality.

4. I used Airconditioning Duct tape to attached the ribbon tubing to the metal bracket and to the body of the printer - the colour even matched the colour of the printer. This Tape is much more effective than the sticky foam stuff provided with CIS Units. It can easily be installed and uninstalled without worrying about degradation of performance

The reason I took these extra precautions was because of the my experience with the i9950 kit and I am not sure if they were required except for vacuum priming which was required to get the i950-CIS working again after installing it on the i9950.

As a final observation the i950 with a basic CIS is a wonder machine and illustrates just how the pursuit of the almighty dollar in cartridge sales is robbing us of the full potential of the technology in terms of what Canon could achieve with a Canon designed inbuilt CIS. The mind boggles.

I still recall the experience that got me started when my i9950 printhead got clogged (and before I worked out how easily this can be fixed). I followed the manufacturers instructions and purchased 8-new cartridges and used the deep cleaning function. After an hour or so the problems was indeed fixed and when I lifted the lid the new cartridges were all empty. What a great investment of $160 - I have never spent a further cent on Canon original Cartridges. The situation is so amusing that I recently purchased a Canon i990 from a large retailer at a clearance sale for LESS than the retail value of the included original cartridges - it was a real bargain even without the Cartridges which by the way I have never used.

So I thoroughly recommend the Colorfly CIS 6-cartridge system and can verify the quality of their inks.

#2: Re: Cost-effective CIS for Canon i950 Author: Martin, Location: South Yorkshire, UK

Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2006 10:13 am
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Jeff wrote:
1. I used little silicon gaskets provided by manufacturer to overcome a sealing issue with the Canon Printheads UNDERNEATH the rubber grommets in the Canon Printhead - the manufacturer had recommended installing beneath the Cartridge Head and the rubber grommett but I found the most leak prone spot was beneath the rubber grommett and the plastic print head body (from my i9950 experience).

That's interesting... I wasn't aware that there was a problem at this point but I guess it does make sense to cover the bases. As I noted in your other i9950 post.. a source for those grommits would be useful

Quote:
2. I cut up 6mm plastic tubing from Hardware Shop into six 6mm lengths and used these between the Cartridge lever and cartridge body to maintain 'spring' in the levers to ensure they don't come lose (again from my i9950 experience).

That tends to be necessary with 3rd party cartridges due to poor moulding but I've found, like you, that it helps to force the clips to hold the cartridge in position with this sort of "wedge" otherwise it pops out and you get an air leak into your CIS.

Quote:
4. I used Airconditioning Duct tape to attached the ribbon tubing to the metal bracket and to the body of the printer - the colour even matched the colour of the printer. This Tape is much more effective than the sticky foam stuff provided with CIS Units. It can easily be installed and uninstalled without worrying about degradation of performance

Only reason I can think of is prettiness.. I use electricians tape initially to secure my own kits when I'm testing for optimal tube clip placement but no end of people say it looks "bodged together" (like a CIS isn't! Razz

) so I often use a glue gun to secure any clips or fittings to tidy things up a little.

Quote:
So I thoroughly recommend the Colorfly CIS 6-cartridge system and can verify the quality of their inks.

Duly noted.. It'd be useful to have some kind of timeframe on those and if you could update your "review" (well it's close to that) over time with any niggles, support response, etc... that'd be useful too.

Thanks Jeff

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