Canon i860 running out of ink

[PapaRatzi]

I have a Canon i860 puchased December 2003 - I don't use it much, but it's been superb. Until a month ago, it still had the original ink cartridges that came with the machine. A month ago over a period of a week, the Cyan, Magenta and Yellow all ran out and were replaced with Canon original cartrudges - that had been purchased at the same time I got the printer.

After replacement - the color looked wrong, too light and washed out. I only had one job to do, print 20 pages of a non-photo graphic, and even though the color was wrong, I just ignored it - since it was just some quicky fliers where the color was not important. Today I went to print a photo page, and I got a warning the yellow had run out - after printing only twenty pages! It seems the problem is that it's printing everything with too much yellow ink, and that's why they looked washed out.

I've run a print test and a clean and they look fine.

I've no idea what to do next, I'll buy another yellow cartridge, and see what happens, I guess.

 

[Nifty]

PapaRatzi, welcome to the forum!

That's a pretty odd problem. It must be using a LOT of extra yellow to run out in only 20 pages. There's definately something not right going on.

I'd be curious if adjusting the yellow in the printer settings would make any difference in the output. Can you move the yellow slider to the left enough to compensate for the extra yellow? Have you tried printing from different programs? Have you reinstalled the printer drivers?

 

[PapaRatzi]

Funny I just did that about an hour ago. I switched to manual and printed out a test pattern from Corel Draw that has squares of red/blue/yellow/purple/freen/orange/black

This prints washed out, with orange looking like yeloow, red as pink, purple as light magenta, green and blue too light and black ok.

If I push up the magenta and cyan only to 75 as opposed to the default of 50 there is no difference

If I also change the yellow to 75 and change the intensity to 75, then the yellow becomes stronger, red becomes orange, blue purple and green not obvious differnce and black becoming dark purple.

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Since yesterday I put in a newly purchased Yellow cartridge and the black ran out and was replaced by a year old cartridge.

Also from Corel Draw printing a document [using default driver set up] that has plain graphics and embedded photos looks too pale and too yellow. Some balck and white photos come out with a yellow tinge. This contracts with the plain yellow square in the other test being too light. I;ve tested with plain paper and photo paper, and also printed anohter photo from ThumbsPlus.

Printing a photo in grey scale give a yellow looking print, reds and blues turn to blacks, leaves look pale yellow/green.

Everthing I print always looks washed out.

Today I pulled out the head, and replaced it and ran a deep clean and a head alignment.

Nozzle test is fine , but the colors are very pale, I'm not sure how strong they should look.

I have not reinstalled the driver since the problem seemed to co-incide with changing cartridges last month.

I do note that the new cartridges I put in were 6Y, 6PM and 6PC - my Cannon manual says to use 6M and 6C and does not mention 6PM and 6PC, but I see that they seem to be compatable on some web sites.

I sent a support request to Canon, but they refused to answer since I'm located in Canada - and I should contact Canon Canada - I'm not happy with that attitude.

 

[Nifty]

Personally I'd never put pigment cartridges in a dye based cartridge nozzle. If replacing everything with the standard i860 carts still doesn't help then I can't think of what the problem could be.

 

[PapaRatzi]

Those cartridges are the ones they gave [forced me to buy as extras] me when I purchased the printer in December 2003. They said the ones that came with the printer were special ones that only were good for printing 10 pages. Since I've seen that with HP printers I believed them. Of course now I see the cartridges that came with the printer lasted well over a year. Maybe since they are old, it's causing in imbalance in the printing somehow and causing too much yellow to be used.

Meanwhile, I though of something to try, I rebooted this machine into Win XP [I have dual boot setup] and printed the same photo I had printed with Thumbs Plus using Picassa. It comes out looking a bit better but still not quite right. I don't have much software installed on XP, so I've gone back to Win98.

Downloaded and installed Canon i860 driver as new printer. Tested some prints and no difference. Black print correctly. The rest is faded.

I could go and buy new Cyan and Magenta cartridges tomorrow, but it's expensive - $22 each. If the printer is gone bad, it's more money down the drain.

 

[fotofreek]

I don't have this printer, but I don't think it uses PM and PC carts. Isn't it a 5 cart printer with black, magenta, cyan, yellow, and pigmented black? Using PM and PC carts would account for the washed out colors. Get the right carts and set the driver on manual with all settings neutral. See what you get. If cost is an issue you might look through this forum for recommended aftermarket carts. Usually, when you have a problem, however, it is usually best to install OEM carts as they are the benchmark.

 

[PapaRatzi]

Yes it's 5 - black, special black, yellow, magenta and cyan. I'm still confused about why some sites show 6PM and 6PC cartridges as being suitable for an i860. The 6PC box [from December 2003] does say i950, S800, S900, BJC-8200 - and not i860.

I agree it's better to stick with the Canon original while trying to solve the problem.


I'll pick up some 6M and 6C on Monday.

 

[fotofreek]

You can put in OEM carts, run a purge print or two, and then do a few known prints to check color, etc. Save the caps that seal the ink outlet port. If you wish to save the OEM carts for future needs, you can replace them with your choice of aftermarket carts, put the caps on the OEM outlet port and hold them firmly with a rubber band, tape over the air vent area to prevent evaporation, and set them aside. They can probably hold like this for a year, minimum. Save them in case youhave future problems and need to do an "OEM check."

 

[Grandad35]

I keep my "opened" and extra refilled carts in low cost plastic food containers with snap-on lids. I first put a paper towel in the bottom of each container and soak it with water so that the atmosphere in the container is kept at 100% RH. In combination with the previously mentioned precautions, this helps to ensure the maximum storage time. When I pull a cart from a container, the outside surfaces are usually damp, so I know that the ink in the cart is not drying out.

 

[Nifty]

Grandad, how do you avoid mold / mildew growth in the container and wet towel? How long does it stay damp? Are we talking multiple week storage, or annual storage?