Ink-level-detector defective?

[Jonas]

This may be one of the newbiest questions ever asked around here...

On my new Canon ip4000 (bought about two weeks ago), I've been watching the ink-level display in the print dialog box, and it showed full carts even though I've already printed several hundred document pages. I figured, wow, this printer is really miraculous! Then all of a sudden (after very little additional printing) the "cyan" display suddenly dropped from looking full to looking almost empty (without going through any intermediate steps), and the dialog box showed the exclamation mark and said the cyan was "Low".

So I pulled the cyan cart and replaced it with a new Canon cart. The cyan cart I pulled out didn't look "low" -- it looked EMPTY! I mean there was no ink in the reservoir at all; I guess there was still some in the sponge.

Considering the dialog display zipped directly from "full" to "low" without showing anything in between, and that the reservoir was in fact empty not "low," does this mean the ink-level-detection system in this printer is defective?

Now it's telling me the magenta is low, too. When I opened the printer and looked into the other carts as well as I could (without actually pulling them out), they *all* looked empty to me (maybe there's a little ink at the bottom of the reservoir that you can't see without pulling them out?), but the dialog box isn't warning me about the yellow or the two blacks -- it still shows them both as being almost full!

This printer prints fine, but is there something wrong with it?

 

[fotofreek]

canon printers don't really monitor the actual level of ink. There is an optical sensor that picks up a small prism cast into the inside bottom of the reservoir when the reservoir is empty. I am not certain about the next warning, but I think that when the sensor tells you about the empty reservoir the printer counts down ink usage and then tells you when it thinks the sponge area of the cartridge is so low that it absolutely must be changed.

 

[Grandad35]

You might want to look at:
http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=41
http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=140
http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=144

 

[Jonas]

> ...canon printers don't really monitor the actual level of ink...

Okay, thanks, I sort of knew that... but shouldn't the printer be counting usage (number of pages printed) before the "ink low" warning, and showing an estimate of some intermediate ink level? I think in another thread someone said it does that at 25% or something like that. If it doesn't do that, then the "ink level display" in the dialog box is completely phony, because it looks like it's going to show you at least some levels of ink.

I read through all the links the moderator posted (they were super-detailed -- thanks!) and although they're very enlightening, it still sounds (from Canon's response) like the ink meter should guesstimate and display at a couple of intermediate points. The issues about the ink meter getting confused if you swap carts in a certain way shouldn't apply here, since the printer is almost new and I hadn't swapped any carts at all.

I would have guessed that maybe my printer is getting confused since I have it hooked up to two different computers simultaneously (a PC and a Mac), but this shouldn't matter since Canon said the ink counter info is stored in the printer, not the driver; and anyway I've done very little printing from the Mac. Could my printer be getting confused because I have it set to go to sleep (apparently turn itself off) after a little while of non-use?

Does anybody else with a Canon ip4000 (or another Canon Pixma) see any intermediate level at all in the dialog box display?


BTW, to keep the empty cart from drying out before I get around to refilling it, I improvised and did the following:

1. I put a couple of drops of distilled water into the ink-outlet hole.

2. I covered the ink-outlet hole with the orange clip (which I got from the new cart) and held it on with a rubber band, as shown in another thread in this forum.

3. I put a piece of gaffer tape over the air-vent hole on top of the sponge compartment.

4. Then I put the cart into a little ziplock bag, along with a piece of cotton-wool completely saturated in distilled water (to humidify everything), and sealed the bag.

I did all this to prevent the cart from drying out, since I haven't even bought a refill kit or inks yet. Don't know if this was a good procedure, or if sitting there with an empty reservoir (but probably a little ink in the sponge) means it will be too dried out to refill anyway.

 

[fotofreek]

Letting the ink level go all the way down in the reservoir can reduce the success for refilling carts. Storing as you have will probably prevent the cart from drying out further, but if you are interested in refilling you should do it soon with any cart that has gone empty. People who refill their carts (I do) don't let the ink level drop beyond 3/4 empty in the reservoir. Better to do it a bit sooner than that as the more sponge that goes dry, the less successful you will be in doing several refills.

 

[Grandad35]

My i9900 shows full and empty, plus 2 intermediate levels (let's call them 1/3 and 2/3 full). When I let the carts empty before switching them, everything works properly. When I was switching carts before they emptied, the display stayed frozen at "1/3 full" because it never detected an empty cart.

I suspect that the ink level indicator may "self teach" from its previous experience, predicting how much ink it is using per "dot" based on how many "dots" it fired before emptying the last set of carts. I say this because I had a similar experience to yours when I started letting the carts go empty after running for a long time without letting them go empty. The next set of carts stayed locked at "full" until the empty sensor was uncovered and the indicator went straight went to "empty". The intermediate levels worked on the next set of carts, however.

Like Rob reported a long time ago, get a small flashlight with a powerful beam and you can see the ink levels without removing the carts. I keep one beside the printer for just this purpose.

BTW, I use a "vacuum refill" technique that allows me to refill even a dry cart, so I operate a little differently than most other refillers.

 

[Nifty]

...so I operate a little differently than most other refillers.

Ain't that the truth! And we sure respect you for it!

Isn't the IP4000 pretty similar to the i860, which I have? If so then I'm in the same boat... FULL... FULL.... FULL.... LOW. Not really any indication via the printer monitor other than that. I've not let any of my carts get below the "LOW" detection and rarely even receive the "LOW" warning because I, like fotofreek, top off all my cartridges pretty often.

 

[fotofreek]

All my carts register about 1/4 full on the meter - been that way for months and many refills. Good thing the gas guage in my car is more accurate! BTW, I also top off my gas tank well before it shows anywhere near empty to preserve the fuel pump that lives in the gas tank. I have been told that the fuel surrounding the fuel pump cools it and keeps it from self-destructing. Just like printer ink and the print head!