How to refill / reset a Canon Pixma MX860 cartridge?

[d1hamby]

Here are some others if anyone feels adventurous:
http://shop.ebay.com/c_depot/m.html...ksid=p3911.m270.l1313&_odkw=&_osacat=0&bkBtn=

http://www.inkproducts.com/ink-store/catalog/Canon-Chip-Resetter-orderby0-p-1-c-96.html

http://www.gotmycartridge.com/CHIP-...-AND-PGi-220-p/gmc-icanpgi220chipresetter.htm

http://www.inkfilling.com/printer-canon-pgi-220-resetter.html

Or you could use some Automatic Reset Chips (ARC)

http://www.ecrater.com/product.php?pid=5115403

 

[cmkit]

I'm happy to report that after a few weeks of waiting for my chip reseter to arrive I can report that it worked to reset my PGI220 ink cartridge.

I too was on the backlog for a long time. I had placed my original order on April 8th after following the discussion on this thread. The cartridge did not arrive until a couple of days ago.

When I emailed them about the delay I received the following response:

Hello,

We are sorry for this delay, we had a problem with our shipment and have
revised the issue. Order will ship out next week at the earliest, but if
you prefer to cancel we can do so. You have not been charged.


Thank you,

John
Inkfilling.com

 

[d1hamby]

I received an email from them after asking about the resetter and they said it was back ordered so it can take a week or two to ship. I hate the suspense!

I just received an e-mail reply back from inkfilling as well. They say it will ship on the 20th, same back ordered story you heard.

Why can't they all be as good to deal with as OctoInkjet?

Take care,
Dave

Any updates yet?

 

[vallejoboy]

d1hamby...

I actually did not order from inkfilling.com I just inquired and I received the back order story. Anyway after hearing this I decided that I would order from a different source and luckily I found a different retailer here: http://fillserv.com/cic/product.php?id=ink-canon-resetter-cli221-pgi220. What a mistake that was! DO NOT ORDER FROM THIS RETAILER! They have no Customer Service what so ever; I tried calling numerous times and emailed twice. Place an order on the 28th of April and my order status has not changed from "Processed." Is it me or I'm getting a feeling the manufacturer is in short supply, I mean two retailers failing to deliver doesn't seem likely... might just be coincidence though or am I judging these retailers too harshly perhaps, I mean ordering from Hobbicolors only took couple days from initial click of a button to doorbell at my door. Still waiting...

 

[vallejoboy]

Ok so I spoke too soon. I emailed Fillserv again after posting the previous reply yesterday and today I received a reply to two of my email and guess what I received the same back order story!!! Too many people are ordering this thing According to the email their order was set to ship this week and they will ship my order immediately after they receive theirs.:/

 

[d1hamby]

Here is a new resetter on ebay, if any one is game:

http://cgi.ebay.com/CLI-221-Canon-R...?cmd=ViewItem&pt=BI_Toner&hash=item4aa0bcf6b3

 

[nhendrix]

Hi, I am a new forum member. I recently ordered a pixma iP4700 with the intention of using the German refill method. Like the MX860, the iP4700 uses the CLI-221 and PGI-220 cartridges. I wanted to get the resetter and just ordered one from refillbay. I paid about $26 on May 8th and like everyone else I'm waiting to see if it ships (and see if it works!). The reason I am writing though is that as I continue to check, the price keeps going down. It is currently $19.95 and there is a google coupon for 10% (if you search for "Chip Resetter for Canon CLI-221 and PGI-220 cartridges" in Google, a sponsored link to refillbay will be at the top of the result page. That link will offer the 10% coupon code.) I cannot vouch for this refillbay but if nothing else it is another USA source to compare with. -Nick

(Note: just received an email from refillbay stating the chip resetter has shipped.)

 

[cgmark]

I have some electrical engineering experience with embedded devices so I decided to see what was going on with the chips on these cartridges.
My first assumption was that these were merely eeprom chips and the printer was just reading info, updating the chip with the ink level and marking them empty when it thinks they are.
It would have taken me 10 minutes to overcome that if it was all there was going on. Next step was to disassemble a canon mp980 printer so that I could have easy access to the actual mount for the cartridge and the pins and wiring. This was NOT fun. The heavy top on the MP980 makes this challenging to do without breaking anything.

The pins on the cartridge are connected to an I2C type interface. I2C is sort of like usb in that you can have multiple devices on one set of wires and select a specific device by using the devices address. This requires 2 pins, clock and data,the other two pins on the cartridge are used for ground and power, 4 wires total going back to the MCU board in the printer for all the cartridges.

More info on I2c here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I²C

Removing one of the chips from a cartridge and taking a few photos and then enlarging them so I could see the circuit they used is when I found out this is not an eeprom. The reason this was obvious is because the red led light that comes on when the cartridge is installed is connected to a pin on the chip that has no direct connection to the contacts on the cartridge. That means that the chip on the cartridge must be able to turn on and off that red light by commands sent from the printer MCU. An eeprom is a dumb device and cannot be used to turn on and off things like LED. I assumed the led light was used for letting the user know which cartridge the printer wants to get your attention.

If not an eeprom what is that chip ?
It has to be a microcontroller of some sort, needs to be cheap and small.
I'm guessing it is a PIC10F variant. The pin layout for power, ground, clock , data all match up and the PIC10F sells for under 50 cents in quantity. It is also more than capable of doing what the chip on the cartridge is doing. I can't be certain because the markings don't match anything I have seen. Typical with OEM they order chips in batches with custom markings.

Decoding the I2c communications between these chips and the printer here is what is going on:
Insert cartridge in printer, chip powers up, waits for the clock line to stabilize, then waits for the data line to go low so it can send its address to the printer.
Once the address is sent for the chip, the printer then ask the chip to identify its purpose, what color it is, what printers it is compatible with, etc.
If the printer approves of the information it then sends a command to the chip to turn on the LED light. The printer can then read and write to this chip like a normal eeprom .
Once advantage this gives the OEM is that you cannot take this chip and read its contents. You have to ask the micro on the cartridge for the information and if it approves of your password/ID it will send you that information. This may be why it has taken so long to get a good resetter. You need to know the codes and the program used on the chips (which are code protected in hardware inside the chip from dumping).

I made up a chip mock up with mcu I have to dump the information the printer is sending to the chip and see if I can trick it into recognizing it as a legit cartridge. I manage to get it to recognize the chip as installed but when trying to print, the printer comes up with an error and refuses to print. I spend hours going over code, looking at logs, trying to see what was wrong and nothing works. Then I noticed that on the bar across from the ink cartridges is a sensor. I thought it was some sort of print head stuck or possible paper sensor but it isn't, it is used as a second verification that the correct OEM cartridge is installed.

After installing a new cartridge and the printer accepting it and turning on the led the next thing the printer does is verify the cartridge is OEM. Earlier I assumed the red light was just for user benefit but it is not totally. After the initial insertion and you close the printer cover. The printer then begins moving the print head back and forth moving each cartridge in front of the sensor on the bar above. It then selects that one cartridge and sends a code to the sensor using the light of the led , blinking it in patterns to send the data. It repeats for all the cartridges whether you changed them or not. Any cartridge failing to blink back the correct code will cause an error.

That is as far as I got with the time I had. If anyone cares to add or comment please do. I hope to do more later when time permits.

 

[stratman]

cgmark:

Great reading. Probably the most enjoyable post I've read about the chipped cartridge electronics.

Look forward to more of your observations.

 

[vallejoboy]

Update...

After more than two weeks of waiting my orde from fillserv.com arrived, just in time because my pigment black had an exclamation mark(near empty). I went ahead and refilled it anyway and tried to reset it using the blue chip resetter from Fillserv but sadly it did NOT work... On the vague instruction it said it would blink with a red light and should stay solid red for 3-5 seconds but on mine it only blinked with a red light for a second and nothing else. I tried holding it in the resetter for about a minutes but it still did not work. i get a U140 cartrige not recognized on the printer (MX860). I dont know it I should return the resetter, I'm going to try the one from ebay but that will take some time...sigh