Canon PIXMA MP780 wasting ink

[Squeaky0323]

Hi,
I have a PIXMA MP780 and my machine is going thru ink like crazy. I have contacted Canon and they tell me that I have been printing in grayscale, which I haven't. They say printing in grayscale uses the color ink. Then, they told me that I was using the wrong type of paper. Well, I'm using inkjet paper. They didn't have a comeback on that one. Then, they said my settings were wrong. I told them I was on plain paper, standard print and they said that I would use black ink but my black ink tank is still full and all my color is gone.
Even the LCD readout shows, black empty (BCI-3e) and all the others full but when I check them, the black is FULL and all the others are empty. Just the opposite of what the readout shows. And, the BCI-6 ink is supposed to be used for photo printing only but the Canon tech said that the colors won't mix right if it isn't placed in there for just plain printing....so that is telling me that even that black ink is used when just printing in black text.
And, when I replace a cartridge, the LCD readout indicator doesn't change. How do you reset it? It should reset itself. At least, the other printers I have had reset themselves when the ink was replaced.
I told Canon for the price of this thing, it should operate A WHOLE LOT BETTER. They just told me the I was doing something wrong. Well, I've done EVERYTHING they have told me to do and nothing works. I am still using all the color ink and no black ink.
If anyone can help, PLEASE......

 

[fotofreek]

Squeaky - Do you use the duplex feature? If so, It is my understanding that, even with plain paper selected, the printer then uses the bci-6 carts and not the black pigmented cart. You also use ink from all the carts when a cleaning cycle is run. The printer does these automatically to keep ink from drying in the jets, and the user can also run them if a nozzle test shows any blockage. Since the bci-6 carts have considerably less ink in them than the larger bci-3bke cart they will empty much faster, all other things being equal.

The ink monitor doesn't really carefully measure ink levels. When you receive the warning that you are low on ink (when the ink reservoir is empty and the little prism at the bottom is exposed) you have a bit more ink available to print with. You then get an ink out message. When you replace the cart the printer only senses if there is enough ink covering the prism and it then shows a full cart. If a cart is removed before the sensor shows it as empty it will not reset when you replace the cart. It is not like the oil dipstick in your car which will show you the actual level.

 

[d86cfv]

My advice would be to ring up and say its got an intermittent fault, sometimes it wont turn on or something, then canon will replace the machine rather than going round and round in circles. Be quick though as i think the 780 is a disscontinued model and they wont have replacement stock for long.

The machine measures the ink in two ways:
1. There is a small prism in the bottom of the cartridge, the machine shines a laser up into this and when the ink gets down to the bottom the beam isnt reflected back (or is reflected back, i cant remember) This then should trigger a notification that the ink is low.
2. After the ink is out of the main chamber the printer switches over to a dot count method, the printer will assume the cartridge has a certain amount of ink left in it and it will count down from there.

This amounts to a VERY accurate ink monitoring system, because it detects how much ink is ACTUALLY in the cartridge. Therefore I would definately say there is a fault with your machine, but i wouldnt try and explain all this to canon, if its not on their list of faults or in their english phrase book then the people on the other end of the phone in india dont know what your talking about.

Being a canon re-seller they are an absolute pain in the arse to get them to sort out their shitty printers. Lovely printers when they work though. The 780 is an awsome machine, i've sold quite a few, i'm sure your aware its built around the 4000 print engine, i have the 760 myself, which is your machine without the doccument feeder but with a colour photo LCD viewer instead.


Regs,

Dan

 

[fotofreek]

d86cfv - It has been my experience that the ONLY time the ink monitor is accurate is the moment the reservoir becomes empty, at which time you get the low ink warning. The printer then ESTIMATES ink usage until the ink out notice comes up. I don't think that it counts the drops from each individual cart at that point. The only time it resets with the placement of another cart is when you have had the low ink warning from the previous cart. Since I refill my carts and do not let the level get down to the point where the low ink warning comes on before refilling, my carts always show about half full regardless of whether I fill it to the top or just half way. Anything between totally full and empty is an outright guess based on Canon's expectation that all users will run a cart down to the empty warning and replace it with a new OEM cart. This forum and the comp.periphs.printers newsgroup are full of posts from new Canon users who complain that their ink monitor is broken. Their description of the problem is exactly what I've noted above. It is definitely not like an automobile gas guage which actually measures the gas remaining in your tank. It is more like a broken clock that is still right twice a day!

 

[d86cfv]

Foto - like i said " u get the warning that the ink is low when the chamber is empty" then it goes to dot count (thats canons technical term for it) i would have thought its based more on an evalutive page count system where it averages out the amount of ink that would go on the page etc.

I think the complexity of the system leads itself to being vulnerable to failure. One of the big grypes i get is from people with bci24 style carts, and the ink levels being wrong, they are purely on a page/dot count method and are not very accurate as i try to explain to my customers that bring back a half full cartridge, or they think they are clever when they take the cartridge out and put it back in again and it shows as full.

I've never had problems with the 3's or 6's.

I think they actually work on a 3 stage system, the 1st it does its dot/page count untill it "thinks" the chamber should be half full, thats when it will show half, then it just waits for the prism to tell it its empty(hence why urs just stay at half full, its waiting for them to run out), so it then shows as low, then as i said, page/dot again to guess at when the sponge is empty. [am just guessing at that stuff though]

I've never had a sponge run dry when it hasnt told me the cart is empty, with the exception of when i push it for that bit more and g too far, therefore compared to the rest i would say its pretty accurate. As a general rule i usually go for about 20 prints after i get the empty message, depending on coverage, very intense colours i would probably only do 10 with no problems and still with a bit of ink in the sponge. Thats the beauty with a canon cart, u can take it out and have a look!

I was trying to go for the simplified version in my earlia post as not to confuse, lol, i think we are on the same tangent Foto.

Regs,

Dan

 

[fotofreek]

Dan - I agree. We've both describing a rather imperfect system that lends to confusion of new users of these printers. The low ink warning is certainly valuable to protect the printhead and give the user a heads up that they need to go to the store and buy another cart before doing much more printing. The average user is most probably reluctant to keep a backup cart of each color at home due to the exhorbitant price of OEM carts. In addition to the posts I frequently see about the ink monitor, there are about as many from purchasers of the low end printers who express sticker shock when buying a set of backup carts! When the street price of an ip4000 was about $100 US a set of OEM carts was about $70 - $75. Someone not acquainted with the printer/ink pricing model can see the value in the printer, but not in the few ounces of ink in five small plastic boxes!

I would definitely encourage squeeky to learn how to refill carts and buy some good quality bulk ink (hobbicolors, mis, formulabs). No need to worry, then, about how much ink the printer uses.

 

[Squeaky0323]

I appreciate all the responses I have received but my main concern with this printer is the black ink BCI-6e is NOT being used. It is full. But the indicator shows it is empty. This unit seems to use everything but black ink. And from all the posts, I should have used most of this ink because I have printed multiple pages of text print with no graphics, just plain black text and the ink is not being used. This machine seems to only use the color ink. That is my main concern.

 

[d86cfv]

I'd say its broken, regardless of what canon say. Get them to replace it and dont take their bull.

Regs,

Dan

 

[Squeaky0323]

Thanks, Dan.....I think that is exactly what I will do.

 

[SyncMaster]

Hi there

Squeaky hasnt answered if he is using duplex or not. I have a MP760 and just recently realized that duplex prints gray and not black, which I think is really annoying.

I would appreciate if someone has a solution to print two-sided automatically and have the proper black ink used.

Rainer