Bob writes: : Shyrell, : : After reading about them in Kim Komando's email news I bought ink from : InkSell.Com : : I bought generic ink for my four year old Canon i950 since Canon was : a lot more $$$$$. : : After using most of my order, I bought big to save shipping, my print : head went defective. : : The repair tech said that Canon makes their own ink and to not use third : party inks. This seemed to not agree with what Karl shah-jenner : suggested in some off forum messaging we did. Canon say they use their own inks, but they (Like Epson/Seiko and HP) all outsource ink manufacture to specialist ink makers. ..and yes, I too was informed when training with Canon that telling people to use Canon inks was the party line, but we were also told we were never to tell people that it was the ink that may/may not cause the heads to clog. rather we were to recommend people only use Canon inks.. suggesting clogging can cause blockages (emphasis on 'can') : I've been using Canon ink since then and buying it from Staples. : : The question that I've had since using generic ink, I was quite : satisfied with it, is was it the ink that killed my print head or the : fact that it was over four years old? Heads are pretty delicate things - and most consumer printers are a lot less robust than commercial ones - but time will kill them eventually. There was always the debate in early inkjet days whether fixed heads and seperate ink carts was better/worse than heads integral to ink carts. The HP attitude of changing the head with the cartridge was always more expensive but it meant the printer heads were always fresh therefore the printer was more reliable. Others took the line that changing the head when it failed was cheaper than changing it every time you changed inks. Nowadays the latter seems the most acceptable path. With the Canons, the heads are designed to be user-replaceable - which makes things a lot easier (and cheaper) than the Epson equivalents of the day which required a tech to do the job .. but they will fail at some point. Four years is pretty good :) And my testing with various inks was pretty hit and miss. Some inks went through fine and some clogged pretty early on.. When you price a head it soes seem very expensive (well, here in Oz at least!) but as I said, changing it when the head fails is still a lot cheaper than changing each individual head&ink cart whenever the ink runs out. My bcurrent i9950 bulk ink system has proved very reliable and very economical - but I had to cut holes in the printer to integrate it and the fabrication of the bulk carts by the aftermarket manufacturer turned out to be less than perfect - the external green and light magenta tanks leaked badly within 6 months and as the whole tank array was solvent fused so I couldn't get to the individual tanks to make repairs, I ended up sinking the whole 8 tanks in epoxy resin :P : If you are planning on printing quantities of the same image you might : be better off using a lab, cost wise. Costco, the one close to my home : is well respected by many people, charges $3 for a 12 X 18 print. I'll second that. Ultimately, lab printed RA4's will cost less and last longer than using a home inkjet - the only real + to using inkjets is the fact that you've got the thing at home and can print when you want. Add the costs up at the end of the day and you'll not save money, just a little time As to what inks to use - it's a case of suck it and see. if the ink does block the print head you've a few cleaning options.. but if you DO find one that blocks the head (it'll do it pretty quickly) - drop that ink and find another. You may find Brand X's magenta and light cyan (or whatever) are fine but their black is the problem (it's often the black!!) - by all means keep using their working clours - just skip their dodgy inks :) karl
