Inkjet Printer Forum / Ink Jet Refill Forum

You can do a nozzle check by holding down one of the buttons (I think it is the paper feed button) until the light flashes twice and release it. I don't know how to get into service mode but the regular nozzle check shows grids instead of just a block of color like many other Canon printers do.

I have three i9100's. My main complaint is the same as for all the Canon six-color printers, they use a lot of photo cyan and photo magenta which are diluted versions of the regular colors which means you're paying a lot more for these colors. But the printouts are noticeably better than the four-color printers and if you want large (13"x23") printouts, then that is something you have to live with. The only other options are large format printers with even more colors.

I also am having a problem with at least one of my printers which I haven't had time to resolve yet and that is the colors from one cartridge are leaking into the cartridge of another color. So if you have a chance to try out this i9100, take the cartridges out of the printer and look for contamination of colors. It takes a day or so for the contamination to happen so if the cartridges have been sitting in the printer for that long you should see it if it has the problem. You will also see it in the nozzle check if you aren't color blind like I am.

Last edited by ghwellsjr (10/24/2009 2:32:24 am)

It seems to have the same Grid nozzle check pattern as the s900, and there's a color nozzle check pattern for it out at the canon website.
see this link:
http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=4571

That's what I concluded too. It means a new print head is in order. Of my three i9100's, I'm not sure which one or ones have this problem so someday when I'm sufficiently motivated, I'm going to have to sacrifice some cartridges and figure out which print heads have the internal leak, unless someone knows a better way to tell. I suppose I could ask my wife or son if there is contamination of the colors in the nozzle check, but the lines are so thin, I wonder if a normal-sighted (not color-blind) person could easily tell. The only reason that I can tell by looking at the cartridges is that I see a different color spreading up from the outlet port.

If it's like the i960 print head, do you know how they join the upper and lower pieces of plack plastic? Has anyone broken into one and posted photos. The molding process has left the ink channels routes identifiable in the plastic, travelling in to the center as it moves the ink towards the nozzles. I wonder if they glue the top and bottom pieces of plastic together. I tried prying them apart to look for clogs but had no luck getting them apart.
Did you use any type of pressure trying to clean clogs from the i9100/i550 heads - air or fluid? I'm not going to do that anymore, I think it causes more harm - breaking seals.

Please post a photo of an i9100 head so we can see one.