IP5200 inkcart red led

Hi
i have been given a IP5200 and after a few weeks soaking the print
head its working great
One thing i dont understand is the relation between the red leds on
the cartridge/printhead and the ink volume shown in the maintenence
box popup
I have refilled and reset (redsetter) 3 carts,
2 carts were new Canon and unopened
but two of the 3 refilled carts are showing a slow red led flash while
the popup box shows these as being Full, why is that.

thanks
mike

Usually when one or more of your cartridges have a flashing LED light, that would indicate that these cartridges are showing low on ink, despite them been filled earlier.

Now you may have reset the chip and it may show on screen that the cartridges are full but I would believe the LED lights to be 100% accrete rather than the on screen ink monitor every time.

I would suggest you remove one of these offending cartridges and visually inspect it and check to see if there is any ink remaining in the reservoir side of the cartridge, I suspect there isn’t, that why the LED lights are flashing, static light means faulty or wrong chip.

The light sensor on the inside of your printer can never be wrong unlike the cartridge chips, so if it flashes red then your low on ink in those cartridges, the only possible explanation for this is that your refill attempt has failed somehow or you didn’t put enough ink into the cartridges to begin with.

The cartridges have a prism at the bottom of the ink reservoir. When the prism is covered in ink, the prism is not reflective. When the prism is no longer covered in ink, the prism becomes reflective. An optical sensor detects the reflective prism and triggers a low ink warning.

Normally this would show both as a flashing cartridge LED and in the pop up ink level window. Why this has come out of sync I don't know, but probably the cartridges were not filled properly, as suggested by The Hat.

I guess a defective chip or a resetter that is defective or running low on battery can be ruled out. These errors should cause the cartridge to be rejected. Static red light means ink level is sufficient, a flashing LED is a low ink warning and a dark LED means the cartridge is considered empty. In my opinion the LEDs should have been green in stead of red. The behaviour of the cartridge LED would then be more logical. But green LEDs are more expensive and less efficient than red LEDs.

Well i suppose i should have said that i had checked, and the two cartridges flashing are full to the same level as the new Canon originals
i have only done a few test prints as yet

so is it the optical sensor that triggers the red led flash or the chip?

as i have not had one of these chipped printers before i dont know what happens when the chip thinks the ink is empty.
but have been refilling i865, ip4000 and MP750 for many years

Are the two problem cartridges OEM or compatibles, because I’ve never heard of the LED giving a false reading warning before, if the chips are damaged they would not show as full in the on screen ink monitor either.

So can you remove all the cart and then re-install them one by one closing the lid each time to observe the on screen ink monitor, this should give a more accrete diagnosis as to what could be causing the problem.

Now it’s this LED sensor that controls the ink levels and not the cartridge chips, it allows the EPROM chip inside the printer to count the ink droplets after the low ink warning notice has shown up, the chip only gives a rough guide to on screen ink levels (Estimated) or if you have fitted the wrong colour cartridge in the wrong place..

Hi

All the carts are OEM and i have tried refitting them without success so im stumped as to why this is happening

think i will just wait and see what happens when they really are out of ink.

thanks for your help

I've run into this before. The chips on the cartridge have gone bad for some unknown reason. It is not necessarily the resetter as when I've run into this, the resetter worked properly on other colors on the same printer.

So maybe this could be caused by the resetter?

I have a battery powered original Redsetter of the first generation, and when the battery runs low, the resetter becomes slow and unreliable. I have had a few chips go bad, but in my case the cartridges with the bad chips were rejected by the printer. If your resetter is battery powered, I suggest to replace the battery to avoid further problems with the resetter. If your resetter is battery powered and you replace the battery, then maybe a new reset will make the chips functional again?

Octoinkjet UK sells virgin empty PGI-5/CLI-8 cartridges, so you can get replacement cartridges without having to buy new OEM ones: http://www.octoink.co.uk/products/Canon-CLI%2d8-EMPTY-Cartridge.html

Hi
I have just read a newer post on this ( and you have linked to this thread ) and the OP said that the printer rejects the cart with the flashing light, but with mine it still prints ok, no yellow warning lights, and the on-screen ink display is correct.
I have just bought some empty canon carts so will try them when the ones in the printer run out.

Please report your results with the "new" cartridges. This might help in finding out if the chip damage is caused by the redsetter.

I have a first generation redsetter for PGI-5/CLI-8 cartridges and it uses up batteries much faster than newer redsetters. When the battery runs low, the redsetter becomes unreliable and might have damaged a couple chips for me. So if your redsetter is battery powered, I recommend to replace the battery.