Hi art people! I'm writing a little update about my printer. The short of it is: I'm currently between printers again, and unable to fill some orders. I apologize for the inconvenience.
Here's the long of it.
You may remember that last summer I upgraded to a Canon Pro-310 wide format pigment printer. The look and archival quality of the new prints have been superb.
Until they weren't.
I started seeing these faint white lines in my prints, about an inch from the bottom of the page, in late January and early February. I spent over twelve hours that first weekend performing nozzle checks, print head alignments, test prints, refilling ink, and changing paper settings. I cleaned the hell out of my print head and even wiped the timing belt (yup, that's a thing) inside the machine.
No change.
I found a superb "printer guy" on Youtube who reviews fine art printers, describes their maintenance, and basically has any info you could want. He said it's likely the print head failing when this happens--an end-of-life service for a printer this size. Redditors agreed.
Not to worry, the printer is well within the yearlong warranty, right? The one listed on the Amazon page where I bought it?
Nope! Though Canon itself is listed as the seller, the fulfiller was a company called "Fast Ship Direct". Not even Amazon itself. FSD sent me a printer with a non-US serial number. Canon won't service it.
Okay, lame. I contact the seller. They copy and paste the same non-answer about a dozen times over the course of this ordeal:
Thank you for contacting us. Unfortunately, the return period for this order has expired. We will be unable to assist you with a return. You may contact Amazon customer support to see if an out of policy exception can be made. Best, Maeve Customer Support
Super lame! I contact Amazon Support. They can't request an out-of-policy exception for me, but they message the seller to see if they'll contact Canon about the distribution error. It's a certified Canon seller, so they should have a contact and be able to request that Canon honors the warranty, since one of them screwed up.
The response?
Thank you for contacting us. Unfortunately, the return period for this order has expired. We will be unable to assist you with a return. You may contact Amazon customer support to see if an out of policy exception can be made. Best, Maeve Customer Support
My blood is boiling and it has been for weeks. My business ground to a halt. I'm being ignored and screwed out of $900 for what I thought was a long-term investment. The Amazon rep told me to dispute it with my bank, so I guess that's my only option left.
I'm no longer a Canon buyer. I have a camera, a few lenses, a scanner, and a piece of junk printer that can't be repaired. And there'll be no more. If they won't honor a warranty for a product they indeed made and distributed wrong, I don't trust them.
And I'm trying to see if an Amazon boycott is feasible for me, too. I should have been done with them for a while, I'm aware, but this gave me a grudge I can hold even when faced with their so-called convenience. (Side note: they won't even publish the review I submitted. I just hope my SEO on this blog post helps some poor artist Googling this printer avoid what happened to me.)
I have a new Epson model on the way, purchased directly from Epson, which my trusty ink supplier tested with pigment inks for over two years and determined was a safe off-label practice. (If I run into issues with that printer, you can bet this post will disappear!) I watched the aforementioned printer guy's reviews of this model, too, though he doesn't touch off-label inks like I plan to.
Anyway, that's the disappointing conclusion to this saga, for now at least. Please keep your fingers crossed for me that the new printer will do everything I ask of it for years to come. I'll be holding a studio sale of unsold original work sometime soon to help recoup the loss. Stay tuned!
TLDR once again: your print order may be delayed, depending on remaining inventory-on-hand. To hell with Canon, Amazon, and especially Fast Ship Direct.