Canon i905 Printer/HP Officejet 6100

[#1]

My dear old Canon printer has finally bunged up its print head (very well past its use-by date) and I tried to buy a replacement, after reading the perils of trying to clean them, only to find that Canon no longer have them. This caused me to investigate the market for a Plan B. I found the HP 6100 on their site and which has a some resemblance to the Canon in that it uses similar ink cartridges ie black, cyan, yellow and magenta (the Canon have normal and photo varieties of magenta & cyan) . This printer is quite cheap (although it has Internet facilities which I am unlikely to use). It seems that it comes with set-up cartridges which should only be used when setting-up and no normal cartridges. I find that a set of normal ones come at around £50 which makes a complete printer twice as expensive as first thought!  Since they now use a common print head there cannot be any justification  for keeping them so expensive.
I know that early experience with HP printers shows that they were supplied with normal cartridges but with reduced ink quantities, so this practice continues with a twist. Standard HP two-cartridge models were all complete with their heads as part of the cartridge, which at least  meant that you got a nice clean head at the time and there was no prospect of a bunged up whole head. This did give some reason for their relative expensiveness. Current practice seems to support the idea that HP do not make any money on making printers but do skin their users every time that they run out of ink...a captive market no less!
I am not impressed!

[#2]

Ask yourself if you need a colour printer.
If monochrome is suitable, then consider a laser.

[#3]

This firm supply new printer heads, not cheap but if your printer is otherwise working ok it might be best to stick with it.
http://www.crc-tasktron.co.uk/

[#4]

@ Jeremy:
Good point but I often have to download full colour forms etc., generally at A4 size & occasionally copy others when completed. Thus the small mini-printers with full colour are no good for that. I do have one of these for pikkies which are otherwise excellent. The i905 gives prints with colour quality on best photo paper that appear to be identical with the latter despite the increase in area.
@gleneagles:
Sadly all the apparent stockists who stock some Canon printheads, do not show the QY6 0050000 for the i905 as being available any more. It is not surprising since the printer was on the market in about 2000! This printer is well built, runs quietly and is easy to set up. I am in mourning.

[#5]

Have a good look around on this site.....
http://www.fixyourownprinter.com/
There is a guy on there, who claims he doesn`t actually work for HP or any other printer, but does know a lot about how to fix them.... ( I think he`s Welsh or comes from Wales)... haven`t used the site for a long time, but he was very helpful.... ( read the disclaimer at the bottom of the home page !)
You can look up part number on the "References" Tab at the top..
You might find your answer on the forum somewhere if you ask the right questions !...

[#6]

Thanks Shutter,
Site looks great but they do not major on Canons. The i905D has no references when searched. The ones in the forum are all around the 2005 vintage which are not helpful. My reference for the head is the one listed by all concerned including Canon. I am still hunting but without much hope, might follow up some of the cleaning advice but probably also hopeless.
Oh well, it is nearly Christmas!!!

[#7]

Sorry to hear you are unable to find a replacement print head, as a last resort you may wish to have a look at this forum,
http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/
A replacement print head for my Canon MP610 was £50. For that I could have purchased a new printer with a genuine set of cartridges but a number of people on nifty-stuff forum advised against it as many of the more modern printers are not as well made as some older models and this was based on the numerous complaints from users.

[#8]

Thanks gleneagles,  Joined that forum and await results if any!!