canon mp490 cartridge compatability

[dralexwaddell]

I bought an Apple Mac in the US and it came with a Canon a MP490 - boxed as Canon Pixma US MP490.
It came with 2 cartridges.
In the UK I thought that I was buying compatible cartridges 510 (black) and 511 (colour).
They did not work and Canon informed me that they were not meant for the US MP490!!
Any advice on how to overcome this issue please.
Appreciated and thanks in advance.
Alex

 

[mikling]

Pay attention people.

In the USA there is a law that safeguards consumers to the effect that you cannot force them to purchase consumables from the OEM in order to maintain warranty. So let's reflect on this for a moment.

Many of these mfrs price their consumables based on affordability of a given market. So that means that similar products are priced according to what they perceive a given market can bear. This is the essence of Economics 202. This is callered differential pricing. They are able to maximize total revenue in each given market...that is the product of price x quantity sold is maximized.

What this in effect creates are potential opportunities for entrepreneurs to acquire less costly goods in one market and ship it to another. This is you can tell will MESS up the mfrs' plans big time.

With the push and requirement to "globalise" products to maintain efficiency and profitability, you have to be able as a mfr to stop this from happening. Welcome "regional" coding. With this, you can have products destined for a particular market stay in that market and block the entrepreneurs from messing their plans.

You have been subject to this. Your only choice is to purchase consumables meant for the US market. Canon does like consumers trying to get around their marketing plans.

 

[PeterBJ]

Hi dralexwaddell

I guess you bought the MAC and printer in the US and now want to use the printer in the UK using cartridges for the Canon Europe region?

There is a slight chance that a region change for the printer made in service mode will also change the cartridge region. This trick doesn't work with the printers with individual ink tanks, but maybe it works with your printer? See this thread, which is about a problem similar to yours: http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=66614#p66614 . If you try this, please report your results.

The service tools only work with Windows, so if your MAC cannot boot into Windows you will have to borrow a windows computer.