We have two Canon MP printers, a Pixma MP210 and my wife’s older model 150. I bought mine because it uses the same cartridges as my wife’s only to find mine will not accept the larger and more economical cartridges. Our bills were horrendous, continually buying both sizes and after some problems with compatible inks and ‘refill your own‘, we gave up economising preferring the originals. Friends were skeptical about using CISS ink systems having had many problems themselves but my son said otherwise and recommended the one from Cityinkexpress. It cost some £60 and he helped me fit it which took all of 30 minutes. The whole process was easy, much easier than I had feared after all the negative advice. It just needed a basic understanding of what the system actually needs in the way of breathing and supply and initial priming. The instructions were quite adequate for this and the ink reservoir was placed at the side of the printer on a foam mat to avoid movement. It has never needed to be primed in well over a year of constant use.
During the installation, in order to run the ink supply tubes conveniently, we needed the smallest of cutaways on the front of the printer to access the interior and using the adhesive pads and clips, the tubes were easily secured inside the printer leaving a generous loop for the carriage travel. This means that when not in use the front fold-up flap of the printer is left down to avoid trapping the tubes but this isn’t a problem as the printer is in almost daily use anyway and this also removes the chance of forgetting to lower the flap when printing and scrunching the paper up. The supplied cartridges looked identical to the original Canon’s except for the ink supply tubes fixed to the tops of each and both clipped into place as normal. My wife uses my printer for any flyers or bulk printing and only uses her printer for the day to day letters etc. She has not bought any replacement cartridges since we fitted the system to my printer.
Just a few months ago we decided to make full use of the economy of the CISS. We had previously done some costing for the printing of calendars for a local charity using original inks and these came out for materials at some £3.50 each leaving little margin for any profit at the Christmas fair. Using the CISS system and a lighter grade of paper, the cost dropped to £1.50 each and we produced a total of 35 A4 calendars of 13 pages each printed on both sides with photos covering half the sheets on hi-res 140gm paper. The saving for ink over the first year must have been some £200 against original ink cartridges and when it came time to top up, we declined to use of some ‘standard ink’ we already had in bulk and instead bought the ‘correct inks from Cityinkexpress being advised by my son that the original Canon inks were solvent based and had a self cleaning effect. We weren’t sure if the ‘correct;’ inks supplied were also solvent based but we bought them anyway having respect for their advice and have used a set of 100cc inks of each of the 4 colours to refill during the 16 months we have had the system. We have now a spare set of inks ready but the reservoirs are all full again.
In use, I find that the printer rarely requires me to run the cleaning process (it tends to run automatically anyway). I do have a tiny section of the cyan missing where the head is blocked on one hole but this occurred using compatible inks and has not yet cleared. It presents no problems using photo or hi-res paper mode and unlike my previous Canon, the printer head can’t be removed for cleaning. But it is no real issue. I only wish I had fitted the CISS ink system earlier. When I do replace the printer, I shall have no hesitation in purchasing another CISS for whatever model we obtain.
Dave
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