iPF5100+Printhead+Warranty

=What warranty does Canon provide on the printheads for the iPF printers?=

The PF-03 printheads for the iPFX100 printers and the PF-05 printheads for the iPFX300 printers that have a [|warranty of one year or 4,000 ml of ink used], **whichever comes first**. This does not include ink used for cleaning. The warranty actually isn't that impressive. At $450-500 for a printhead, that works out to head cost of 450/4000 = 11 cents per ml of ink. So two printheads are warranted for a total of 8 liters, or just over 5 complete sets of 130 ml ink cartridges. If there is a failure after that, it will cost you $450-900 to get your printer going again. That is a best case scenario for the length of your warranty, because if you are a relatively low volume printer, you won't print that much in one year, then your warranty is gone. It could turn out that your printhead cost will be 2-3 times this much per ml of ink if you don't print high volume and the printhead fails right after the warranty expires. I figured less than 5 cents per ml as the printhead cost for HP z3100 (based on 2.5 liter "averaged maximum" throughput per head and $50 cost per head). The total head replacement cost for the HP is about $300 for the printer (6 heads for the whole printer).


 * Conclusion:** Cost advantage for printhead life goes to HP by a wide margin. However, with only a few reports of early printhead failure so far (all replaced by Canon under warranty), this discussion may be more academic than of practical signficance. In actual use the printheads appear to be extremely reliable.