A Empty Cartage Detection Hardware Design

[billcf]

A Empty Cartage Detection Hardware Design

Circuit, fig's and photo at http://underside.110mb.com//Empty Cartage Detection/

I have a PIXMA Pro 9000. It is still under warranty and being used quite often. So I used a
i550 printer to check out the design. ( the detection hardware seems to be the same)

A IRLED, prism, and a Photo detector is used to sense a empty cartage. fig 1

When an empty cartage moves over the detector the voltage at point (A) (fig 4) goes
low . Then high after it passes the detector. fig 2

When (A) goes low it triggers a one shot. Pin's 6 and 1 on IC 74121 goes low for a time
set by C1. This turns on the LED and sounds the buzzer. With C1 = 100 ufd the time is about 15 seconds.
A latch could be used to hold the LED and buzzer on.

The design can reliably detect a empty cartage and the circuit is stable.

Some questions:

Is the detector the same? The PIXMA Pro 9000 and i550 both have 3 wire coming out from the detector asm .

Is the IRLED disabled? if so it can be turned on fig 3

The photo detector ? No modification was needed on the i550. A 10K Ohm resistor from point (A) to +5 worked OK also.

NOTE: Take care in changing any wiring on the photo detector +5 volt to points A or B without a current
limiting resistor and it all over.

When I can free up the PIXMA Pro 9000 I will take off the cover and check out the circuit design on this printer.

Has anyone taken off the cover on this printer. Poped one of the end caps and it look
like their is a latch.

is anyone working on a hardware solution for monitoring empty cartage's?

A design using a cmos one shot could operate on batteries. may be

billcf@gmail.com

 

[pharmacist]

Hi,

looks very similar to a concept I proposed on this forum several months ago. I'm interested in you attempt if it works or even better: completely disable the chip circuit from the inktanks and return to the optical detection system. Since the printhead of the Pro 9000 is exactly the same as on my i9950, my conclusion is that the handshaking with the chips must be somewhere on the printer's circuit.

 

[billcf]

Hi,

looks very similar to a concept I proposed on this forum several months ago. I'm interested in you attempt if it works or even better: completely disable the chip circuit from the inktanks and return to the optical detection system. Since the printhead of the Pro 9000 is exactly the same as on my i9950, my conclusion is that the handshaking with the chips must be somewhere on the printer's circuit.

********

Thank for the comments.

The i9950 printer uses BCI-6 Cartridges. You have a optical detection system now.

How do you know that the i9950 and the pro 9000 print head are exactly the same?

What bring you to the conclusion that the handshaking with the chips must be somewhere on the printer's "circuit"? Do you mean hardware?
How about software?
.
Completely disable the chip circuit from the ink tanks and return to the optical detection system. Sure, any clues on how to do this?

**********************
I think that, may be, the optical detection system is not disabled. A few lines of code in the print driver to not display
the the empty warning is all that is required. Why disable the hardware? We will see when I get the covers off.

Will one with the skill to reverse engineer the print driver for all of canon chipped printers do it? I think not.
Will someone make a $30 chip reset er? may be But when?
Lots of talk, but no action solves nothing.

I do allot of printing and need something now. So this is my effort to solve my problem.
It works on the i560. It simple only 5 parts. No modification to the printer. Will it work on the pro 9000? I will let you know.

I am working on a scheme,using this design, to find the empty cartridge with out removing them.

billcf@gmail.com

 

[pharmacist]

Hi Billcf,

please look at http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=2031&p=2 where I posted my speculation. About printheads: Canon is acutally using the same printhead for different printers. For example: the non-chipped IP3000 uses the same printhead as in the large format and chipped IX4000/IX5000. And please look at here:

http://www.theconsumablesdepot.com/cat/Canon/products/Canon_QY6-0055.asp, where you can see that the Pro 9000 uses the same printhead like the i9950/Pixma IP8500. So it's just an "invention" from Canon to squeeze out your wallet more effectively.

My idea was to make either a independent optical sensor system with special refillable cartridges and this sensor unit should be plugged into the printhead on which those special cartridges (with a indentation with a prism to sense any low ink warnings) are sitting on it (original chips have to be attached to them still). This sensor unit could be powered by a small battery (similar to those on mainboards) and produce a sound warning when one or more of the carts are running low. By doing so, you don't have to disassemble the whole printer, since this would be a total independent system.

 

[ghwellsjr]

Pebe was the one who came up with this specific design but pharmacist was the one who got the general idea going:

http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=11891#p11891

 

[pebe]

When (A) goes low it triggers a one shot. Pin's 6 and 1 on IC 74121 goes low for a time
set by C1. This turns on the LED and sounds the buzzer. With C1 = 100 ufd the time is about 15 seconds.

Pins 1 & 6 are complimentary outputs and only one is high at any time. The chip can sink 16mA but only source 0.4mA. So the buzzer to pin6 is OK, but the LED needs to be connected to 6, not 1.

I cannot see a 5V supply in the 4200 manual and I think the controller may run off 3.3V. I think it may be wise to disconnect the feed from the photdiode back into the main board.

is anyone working on a hardware solution for monitoring empty cartage's?

A design using a cmos one shot could operate on batteries. may be

I have thought of several ways. Small micro, CMOS gate, and simple transistor switcher. All are possible. But will Canon continue to use this optocoupler on future models now they are using chips? If not, is it worth pursuing the matter?