Modify some Canon printers to enable CD/DVD printing

Jan 22, '10 07:30:00AM

Contributed by: robg

I burn a fair number of CDs and DVDs at home, and I've never been thrilled with my labeling options: stick-on labels can come unstuck, or unbalance a disc, and LightScribe takes forever and looks, well, not all that good. I own a Canon printer, and was thinking "there must be a way to do this; it's a newish printer." But after some web searching, it seems Canon users -- at least in the USA -- can't print directly on CDs and DVDs, thanks to an Epson patent (I believe it's this one) on such technology!

That was frustrating, to say the least, and I thought I was resigned to either buying an Epson printer, or perhaps a customized CD/DVD printer (quite spendy)...but then I stumbled across this page. It turns out that many Canon printers can, with a bit of work, print on CDs and DVDs.

The secret is that Canon ships the same printer models in both the US and Europe, and European models can print on CDs and DVDs by default. So that means that many Canon printers (including my Pixma iP6600D) include the hardware necessary for printing on CDs and DVDs (namely, a slot into which the CD/DVD can slide), but it's blocked off on printers sold in the United States. So with just a bit of work and a minor expense, I was able to add CD/DVD printing capability to my Canon printer. After testing it last night (I had only one printable CD in the house!), I can say it works amazingly well.

The above link got me started, but after more Googling, I found The-Five-Easy-Steps.html, this page, (Ed. note 7/16/10: that link is now broken, so you may need to search again) which has a big FAQ, and a bit more detail on some of the steps. I won't replicate the modification steps in detail here, because they differ for each model of printer, but read on for some basic notes on my experiences with the modification.

First, note that if you do this, you'll probably void your printer's warranty (mine's out of warranty already), it's possible you could break something while gaining access to the CD slot, and if you make a mistake, you may wind up with a printer that won't work until you rectify the problem.

The basic steps to modify the printer are:

  1. Remove plastic trim covering CD slot
  2. Order the proper CD tray for your printer
  3. Change the printer's region from USA to Europe
  4. Uninstall and reinstall the printer driver
You need to use one of the above links to find your model of Canon printer, and then buy the proper tray (mine uses Tray C) from eBay. I just ran a search on Canon CD Print Tray ip6600d, and came up with a number of hits. I wound up ordering this one, because it was the cheapest.

The tray arrived in a few days, and was clearly new and still packed in the factory packaging. That was the easy part of the project. Resetting the printer's region is the toughest: follow the directions for your printer closely, as there is zero feedback as you work through the button presses. You may see blinking lights, but the LCD display won't update at all (at least on my printer it didn't). So you're basically working blind.

After changing the region, go to the Print & Fax System Preferences panel, and remove your printer, then add it back in. This should be enough to get it to detect the newly-enabled CD/DVD printing capability. If you have troubles, the second link above has a good FAQ and some troubleshooting ideas. For me, though, it worked on the first try.

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