Heaven is a Canon i9950 (i9900 in the US) with a CIS that prints beautiful A3+ photos day and night! And we all know that to get to heaven requires much self-sacrifice and penance. Canon have certainly made sure this will be true with design features no doubt included to make the i9950 a CIS-danger zone.

This is the story of my own trial and tribulations in seeking to achieve the ultimate rewards. And how, after spending a few months in the depths of purgatory, I was able to arise and ascend to Canon Inkjet Heaven.

Was all the effort and suffering worth it. HELL YES. My Office is piled with foot high stacks of perfect colour prints that I didn't need to anoint myself in ink to achieve. Indeed I was using up so much A3 glossy that I ranout of stock and started using ordinary A3 paper to perfect the layouts - and guess what - the quality did not deteriorate and except for the glossy sheen the prints were the same. I have even got to prefer plain paper for my own use!

This has meant a massive saving for me since I now do all my Photoshopping and Proofing on plain A3 paper and only go to full gloss for clients and indeed in most cases now leave that to the Printer. Anyway, this is an unexpected benefit that is testament to the quality of the i9950/i9900 Printer.

OK, to start the story I purchased a CIS made by Colorfly (http://www.colorfly.com.cn/cnciss/index.htm) for my Canon i950 6-cartridge printer and it worked perfectly - see my post on the i950 elsewhere in this Forum. Buoyed by this experience I purchased a Colorfly system for the i9950 (i9900) and oh was I in for a surprise. The i9950 is an 8-cartridge system with additional red and green cartridges. There was no way of getting this thing to work. After spending many hours getting a particular configuration running it would print a few great prints and then colours would drop out OR after spending a day getting it to work you would wake up in the morning and the colours were just a jumble or one or two colours would be missing.

In a nutshell this was the sum total of hours and hours of toil and frustration:

1. I could get all 8-CIS Cartridges to work on A4 full colour prints but after 4-5 colour printouts one colour would drop out. Priming this colour would lead to another dropping out in its place, and so on and so on.

2. Could get 7-CIS Cartridges and one Canon original to work continuously for A4 but when going to A3 after several prints colour would mix-up - still got image but all the colours were jumbled.

3. Could get 6-CIS Cartridges to work flawlessly for all size prints up to the full A3+ with other two (Red & Green) replaced by Canon Cartridges.

From this I concluded there was some form of back-pressure problem caused by the additional pressure stress of supporting 8-ink columns compared to six. To get to the stage of having a CIS working perfectly with 6-ink flows and two original Canon Cartridges was no mean feat in itself and required the following enhancements:

1. Small thin silicon gaskets inserted on top of each Print Head in Print Cartridge to effectively seal Cartridge/Print Head interface. These were provided by manufacturer and installed per instructions.

2. Same small thin silicon gaskets inserted under each rubber grommet surrounding print head to seal grommet/plastic Print Cartridge Holder base interface. I found through my own experience that this was the most prone area for air leakage rather than the top. I fitted the silicon gaskets to both top and bottom but my own experience indicated it was the bottom where the problems arose. Effective sealing of this interface was essential.

3. Thick 2 mm thick x 5.5cm diameter x 1 cm width rubber bands which I eventually found at the local cheap shop for $2 for pack of five. [They were marketed as "Inspiration Bands" had words like "Strength" and "Faith" etc for kids - I hope these were not essential]. I used these to wrap around print cartridge and hold the Cartridges tightly in place. There are actually two slots on the side of the Cartridge Holder that these slotted into suggesting to me that Canon had at some time known there was an issue with the stability of the Cartridges under the stresses of the i9950. Anyway I used two of these bands - one to lock cartridges and one over top of ink tube connectors/cartridge joins to stop them being pulled out by fast jerky motion of this printer [I worked out this was a problem and went looking for extra thick rubber bands and there they were at the Local Cheap shop all in bright colours]

The extra thick Rubber Bands were essential to the final successful outcome since without these the Cartridges eventually shake loose under the heavy printer stresses of the i9950 leading to ink leaks into Cartridge/Print Head interface which stops one or more colours printing. Until I used these bands I had no success in getting the CIS to work on the i9950 for any length of time regardless of how many CIS cartridges were used.

4. I used plastic tubing 6mm diameter or larger if necessary cut into small 6mm strips to jam in between Cartridge lever and Cartridge body when installed in Print Head Container to maintain spring in levers and again safeguard against them coming loose.

5 I used 2cm strip of 6mm thick Household cleaning sponge squashed under the top Print Head Cartridge Lever to bear down on the ink tubes laying across the top of the 8-cartridges in the Print Head Container to dampen the jerky motion of the i9950 printer and prevent the pull on the tubes being transmitted to Cartridges and shaking them loose.

6. I used 48mm Air Conditioning Duct Tape to attach ribbon tubing to bracket and to the chassis of the Printer. It was so much more effective than the double sided foam strips provided by the Manufacturer that I wonder why it is not used universally.

7. Finally, I developed an effective way of priming the ink colours using Vacuvin Vacuum Wine Saver and Plastic Holder purchased from inkbank.com.au which ensured really effective priming getting rid of all air pockets and establishing robust ink columns. I have discussed this simple, cheap and effective method in detail in another Post BUT I do consider it important to clear out all air pockets and degas the ink. I found that using gravity to prime the system did not really get rid of all air pockets whereas the vacuum priming produced robust columns and indeed this showed up in better quality print colours.

So there it is - after all this effort - I was able to get working perfectly with 6-CIS cartridges and two Canon Originals (Red & Green). The additional Red and Green Cartridges are not used as much as the other colours so this was not really a problems for me and the set-up worked perfectly for a over a month. However, I don't know whether I got sick of having to refill the Red and Green once a week or whether it was the indignity of having to use a hybrid solution but I decided not to leave it at this.

I figured that the back pressure problem could be solved by a Cartridge that used a small bore connector between the Cartridge Reservoir and the Cartridge Foam thereby adding an extra surface tension contribution to maintaining the integrity of the 8-ink columns. I searched around and found a cartridge at www.inkme.com.au that claimed to be refillable without having to remove from the Print Head Holder and plug the bottom. That seemed ideal so I purchased a number and installed. The ink is taken from the Reservoir to the Foam via what is effectively the shank of a Syringe and the Reservoir is open to the air at all times. Just what I needed since this set-up obviously reduces pressure on the Print Head and does not rely on holding up an ink column.

I installed and they worked perfectly. So I now had a CIS with 6-ink flow Cartridges and two refillable which all I needed to do was fill inline with a Syringe .... but still not satisfied I hooked the Refillable Cartridges up to the CIS by inserting the plastic tubes through the air holes in the Reservoir using an elbow connector and inverted rubber grommet to get perfect seal. Indeed this was made easier by the airholes being exactly the right width and tapered inwards guaranteeing a very tight seal.

At first I had great difficulty in getting the ink flow - and that was when I developed the vacuum priming - once I vacuum primed the Red and Green Cartridges several times using the Wine Saver Vacuum Pump the whole system worked perfectly and has gone on working perfectly. It proved to be of crucial importance to get rid of all air pockets in the two Refillable Cartridges to get them to behave as CIS.

Flushed with my success I eventually replaced all the original Colorfly CIS-Cartridges with the Refillable ones connected to the eight Colorfly bottles and once primed they worked perfectly and have gone on working perfectly. Not sure whether it was any better quality that with the 6-Colorfly and 2 Refillable Cartridges but it made me feel good in thinking that I have minimised the pressure on the Printhead. Rationally I think it was only necessary to use two Refillables since the 6-Colorfly CIS Cartridges worked perfectly.

That is not the end of the Story – in an addendum - after a month or so of perfect operation I got overconfident and seeing a new CIS proclaimed for the i9950 I purchased one on eBay and installed according to the instructions - what a disaster - all the same problems that I had experienced with the Colorfly - it was a total flop and took me a day or so to get it out and into the rubbish bin and get back to the i9950 configuration above. This convinced me that despite the marketing fluff there is a problem with the i9950 that requires all the steps I had followed. Presumably these are all design features introduced by Canon to make the i9950 CIS-unfriendly.

So that is my story - the beast is tamed and I am in Canon Inkjet Heaven although still suffering from the battle fatigue. I recently purchased a new i990 at a bargain price from a Clearance sale – it is a 7-cartridge A4 printer not A3. Using my newly acquired knowledge I installed a Colorfly i9950 CIS kit on this printer just leaving the Green Ribbon Tube hanging since it is not required. The Unit worked perfectly first time and has continued working perfectly in the hands of the inkjet amateurs who I gave it too for commercial use.

Bloody hell.. and I thought I had some battles...

Something tells me I'll be steering clear of the 8+ cartridge assemblies but a couple of things I'm curious about and also would like to clarify as I think there'll be some folks who find that a bit confusing.

1. Can you list the suppliers for the grommits and cartridges you mentioned... some pictures would be useful too
2. You might want to review the thread and pick one term for the carriage unit as I think you used about 3 in there and I was getting lost for a bit.. Perhaps even a picture with the parts ID'd with a term would make it easier to understand...

Know I'm asking a lot there but just a big vote of thanks for the information... Useful as hell and I know the grommit/air-leak information is something I'll be very glad of as it's caused me some grief in the past.


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Printers: (Canon) MP500/830, MX700, iP4000/4200/4300/4500/5200, iX4000(A3) (Epson) C84/86, D88, CX6600, R285/800/1900 (HP) K550, K850, K5400, L7680

I really want to add a CIS to my i9900. Your write up was great! You have convinced me that your method works. Could we get an update with what parts you used, where to acquire them and exactly what to do along with some photos? Your post was as much about your experimenting as it was about your solution, and I loved reading it. But now a revised post only detailing exactly what to do, with photos and sources would be perfect. Now, if you are not interested in doing that, then perhaps you should consider offering to sell your detailed solution?? Heck, why not put together a set with the instructions and the parts and sell them as a kit?? You might have the only working i9900 CIS system out there. I would be happy to be a beta tester. I go through a lot of ink with this printer. I used to have a CIS on my s9000 before it stopped printing (no fault of the CIS system). And I have been refilling my own cartridges on my i9900 for a couple of years now. One thing I have noticed is that the foam in the cartridges gets clogged over time, but running water backwards through the cartridges cleans them out and allows them to work like new again. Does your system use foamless cartridges? I just put a CIS system on an Epson R320, and like you I used vacuum to pull the ink into the cartridge. The cartridges on this system are foamless. With these cartridges it was easy because a syringe fit into the exit port of the cartridge. So far the system is working good, but I have only printed a dozen 8.5 x11 photos. I bet there are a lot of people out there that are looking for a working CIS solution for their i9900. Please let us hear back from you. Thanks - Paul