Canon Pisma PRO-100 ink usage

[jtoolman]

So far I have printed one 11 x17 and over 20 letter size ( 8.5 x 11 ) prints color and B&W
My ink indicators still show 100%.
I heard and Mike can definitely tell us for sure, but apparently the ink level drops occur at 20% increments.

BUT....... I just visually checked the carts and all but two of them, the light gray and light magenta show an actual drop of ink level in the liquid reservoir.
The rest are still filled almost to the top.

These NEW OEM carts come filled to the very tippy top of the liquid side.

So, either the carts are not feeding ink ( impossible ) or this printer is REALLY very thrifty with ink usage.
Someone in the Luminous Landscape printing forum, has now printed more than couple dozen 13 x 19s without even showing the first 20% drop.

Mikling, I know you have gone through many, many refilling cycles during your extensive testing. What was your experience on this?

Thanks
Joe

 

[wcandrews@sccoast.net]

I have also reported that this printer uses very little ink.

I have printed 1812 sq. in. of color prints, and visual inspection shows the carts to be nearly full.
The prints include:
12 8.5 x 11
4 13 x 19

The sq. in. figure is the actual print size and not the paper size since some of the 8.5 x 11 and 13 x 19 pages contained as many 4 x 6 prints as possible using Qimage.

Wil

 

[mikling]

After one shot, the ink level was disabled. So it's not like I had a lot of experience running and comparing chip to ink levels. What I can say is that it definitely is thriftier with ink than the 9000 and I attribute this to the grey ink inks and less mixing of PM,PC,Y to generate the grey the 9000 would have done. The head cleans are lengthier as well, or was I impatient?

Overall, ink consumption is quite reasonable. It's not a hog at all. Except for the reported firmware issues on certain batches, it's a well sorted machine.

Did you know about Epson's trick? I don't know if it holds here. On the latest Artisan 837 etc, after the first setup, the printer reports a full cartridge even though it is like 50% down in reality because of the need to fill the tubes. Then it gets sticky and then comes down really quickly. Now after the first cartridge cycle, the second one will report normally and while it is still sticky a little at the top a bit, it progresses much more evenly thereafter as compared to the first insertion. Just like the gas gauge in your car, they mess with your head.

Now the first Artisan 700 and 800s were known to "drink" ink as users complained that after setup there was hardly any ink left. Epson fixed that problem as per above so these people would keep quiet. Nothing changed except the ink level indicator trick. So there you go, trust the ink level indicators as much as you want....just beware they can be rigged.

Don't keep popping the lid to check, you know what that does Joe.

 

[jtoolman]

But even with the ink indicators disabled you should pretty know the square footage worth of printing you get before any colors require refilling. Hopefully something will show up down the road to solve that problem.

I have visually checked my carts twice now in about three weeks. Solely because I had expected a larger physical drop on the inks.

I did not hear any lengthy purge cycles having taken place when the lid was closed. I don't think this printer behaves in the same manner as the 9000 and 9500 MKIIs which I would not want to remove carts for a visual check too often.
They seem a lot thirstier than the PRO-100

I forget which EPSON printer actually shows an accurate ink level after the initial charging for new. There is one that actually shows true levels. But most, as you have said will show you a full level and then WHAMO!!!! Down to 30% - 50% or even less.

That was exactly what I was worried about with the PRO-100.

The question still is, how did the Ink indicators behave during the use of the initial set of cartridges before you began to refill them?

Joe

 

[mikling]

Oh, they did not do the Epson trick. Why? because if they did, then with the clear cartridges, they'd be getting an earful.

This is the same reason why I think they went to the opaque carts in the other desktop printers. The reservoir could be empty but the sponge still holds a large proportion of the total ink. Canon probably got a lot of call on this with the 220/221 carts and then gave up.

Oh, in case you did not realize, I still have over 3/4 of the original carts, but the chips are all used up.......I switched the chips over and over and over using CLI-8 bodies in testing. it was easier than flushing and drying. I just kept using bodies and switching chips. That will definitely throw off any keeping track of useage. In fact I lost track. What is still used the most are the grays and photo colors and yellow. Of course if you do B&W a lot, then that will change.