Keep your printer turned on 24/7 or power it down after every use?

Do you turn off your printer or do you leave it powered on?


  • Total voters
    15

mikling

Printer VIP
Platinum Printer Member
Joined
Jul 2, 2006
Messages
3,239
Reaction score
1,471
Points
313
Location
Toronto, Canada
Automatic ARE being done and for good reason. It definitely is being done on Pro-10. Once the OEM Lucia Pro ink dries, no amount of soaking will remove it. Canon knows this and this is the price of making tough scratch resistant OEM ink. Refill ink OTOH is not as tough in this regard.
There is a clock on the Pro-10 that has to be kept running. This clock counter only starts up AFTER the power on the first setup of the printer. Thereafter it is counting time. A Canon authorized service tech went over this with me and we discussed certain aspects of printers. Apparently no such clock exists on the 100. He was confused by how the Pro-10 works as compared to the 100. He did not understand the impact of the OEM Lucia Pro pigment ink. He was intrigued by the differences.

Even my R3000s and P600s will do some extra cycles if they are left powered on with no use for a while. It does this when the first print jobs come along.

In an idle state there is little current moving though the printhead nothing that should stress any electronics. The same cannot be said for when it is actually printing. Use ink that is not as dense in color and the average current that is put through the printhead increases for obvious reasons.....it needs to put out more ink. More nozzles are used and more higher heat and current density entails.

Having lived with the Pro-10 in the office with me for 8 years, it was weird hearing the Pro-10 start up doing stuff by itself. The 10 seems to have added some sequences over the 9500.

In the service manual of the 9500 the timing sequences are in a table Pages 38-40. It certainly is not as simplistic as allegedly outlined here. There is some real technical facts there designed into the firmware. For example did you know on the 9500, whenever C,M,G tanks are replaced the agititation time is doubled as compare if any other colors are replaced?

The amount of cleaning changes when for example a printhead is removed and the same one versus a new one replaces it. ( Thus somehow the printer knows a new head is put on - are print heads serialized and this is read by the firmware?)

Folks it is not as simple as many think. Each printer model is different but one thing remains it is more complicated than most people think and the operations that put in there by skilled competent engineers are there for a reason. Some make the accusations that the operations are there to waste ink. But take for example the aspect of printhead removal. If the engineers wanted to waste ink, they would treat ANY removal of printhead as a new one and consume more ink. The fact that they want to use less ink when the same printhead is removed and replaced tells you that they are trying to minimize ink waste. The color of the ink changed differences are obvious if you know about pigment inks....those colors are the most loaded with pigment and prone to more settling than the other colors.

Respect engineering folks.

Bye.
 
Last edited:

paulcroft

Fan of Printing
Joined
Jan 11, 2010
Messages
74
Reaction score
39
Points
58
Printer Model
Canon Pro-100
It's just occurred to me - are we talking about the same thing? I've never turned the printer off or unplugged it but, under maintenance settings, I have it set to turn itself off after 30 minutes of inactivity.
 

RogerR

Getting Fingers Dirty
Joined
Jan 6, 2014
Messages
30
Reaction score
26
Points
44
Printer Model
Pixma Pro-100
My Pro-100 is off except when I print. I often feel guilty about, but it frequently goes more than a month between prints. I've had the printer almost 9 years.

I ran two sets of OEM ink....and then switched to Precision Colors refills.

The results. I've only had one issue in the entire time I owned the printer. Last year, the Magenta clogged. The ink in question was very old and had started to gel in the cartridge. 100% my fault for using 6 or 7 year old ink and (IMHO) it would have clogged no matter how often it was cleaned or how much it was powered on. Since I had an extra printhead, I installed it along with a brand new batch of ink from Precision. I cleaned the old printhead and I believe it will probably work fine if/when I need it.

Not bad, considering I only paid $399 before a $300 rebate (and I got a bunch of 13x19 photo paper included). Buying two at that price was the deal of the century.
 

kalides

Getting Fingers Dirty
Joined
May 2, 2022
Messages
31
Reaction score
18
Points
28
Printer Model
canon pro 9000 mk2 epson wf
i turn mine off, as i sometimes don't print for a month, or more, so i think, when i turn it on, it will clean, and then i can print. i wouldn't want it to keep cleaning, as the waste ink pads would just get full. i still don't know if i can change them, as it is a pro 9000 mk2, and i think the pads are buried deep.
 

sofialucas

Newbie to Printing
Joined
Sep 3, 2022
Messages
6
Reaction score
4
Points
8
Location
New York, New York, United States
Printer Model
Heidelberg Versafire CM
I suggest keeping the printer on all the time, as keeping it off for a longtime or by turning it on and off periodically may cause printhead dry out quickly.
 

The Hat

Printer VIP
Platinum Printer Member
Joined
Jan 18, 2010
Messages
15,618
Reaction score
8,691
Points
453
Location
Residing in Wicklow Ireland
Printer Model
Canon/3D, CR-10, CR-10S, KP-3
by turning it on and off periodically may cause printhead dry out quickly.
The state of the print head is unaffected by having it off or on periodically, the issue with dried ink in the print head can be caused by a poorly maintained purge unit not capping the print head when idle, this issue can also be traced to the ink cartridges themselves..
 

PeterBJ

Printer VIP
Platinum Printer Member
Joined
Nov 27, 2010
Messages
5,055
Reaction score
4,896
Points
373
Location
Copenhagen Denmark
Printer Model
Canon MP990
It's just occurred to me - are we talking about the same thing? I've never turned the printer off or unplugged it but, under maintenance settings, I have it set to turn itself off after 30 minutes of inactivity.
I think this is a very important post. Notice the printer can be:

  1. Connected to the mains and turned on
  2. Connected to the mains and turned off
  3. Disconnected from the mains
When the printer is connected to the mains and turned off the power supply still supplies some standby voltages to the mainboard. This keeps timers and counters on so the printer "remembers" when the printhead was last cleaned. These counters and timers determine if the printhead is cleaned when the printer is turned on and how much cleaning is done.

So to minimise printhead cleaning at startup I keep my default printer connected to the mains 24/7 but turned off when not in use. It is not because refill ink is expensive I do this but to prolong ink absorber life and reduce startup noise and waiting time before the printer is ready when turned on.

A few service manuals for older printers have a table showing ink consumption in different printhead cleanings. See the service manual for Canon Pixma iP4200 . The pages 2-2 and 2-3 have a table showing purging and ink consumption.
 

jimbo123

Printer Master
Platinum Printer Member
Joined
Dec 2, 2007
Messages
478
Reaction score
378
Points
223
Location
USA - NJ
Printer Model
MP830 MP980
good info here. here are 2 pages from my MP830 service manual(PDF), which shows the amount of ink purged when cleaned based on hours of inactivity.

it does support the practice of refilling/topping off all color inks carts when one need refilling, due to the fact that all color ink carts are cleaned when one is removed.

looks like there is no automatic periodic cleaning as i had originally thought.

i do seem to remember the printer making cleaning/purging noises on its own.

hmmm..... might be me hearing things

J

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
• Active Printers: MX700, MX870, MP980, PRO-100
• Stored Printers: IP4500, MX700, MX860, MX870
• Past Printers: MP830
• Method: German Durchstich Method
• Ink: first Hobbicolors, then OCP, now ASPEN
• Misc: Squeeze bottles - so much easier than syringes
 

Attachments

  • Canon_Pixma_Mp830_Complete_Service_Repair_Mainten.pdf
    1.1 MB · Views: 136
Last edited:

Artur5

Printer Master
Joined
Jan 24, 2011
Messages
1,294
Reaction score
1,618
Points
278
Location
Kmt. 0.
Printer Model
MB5150,Pro10s,i3Mk3s+,Voron2.4
I’m quite sure that Canon printers do not perform purge/cleaning cycles by themselves. It wouldn’t make any sense,
Imagine the scenario: After refilling/replacing the cartridges you go on trip for several weeks leaving the printer ON.
If the machine performed cleanings automatically every time a fixed number of hours had elapsed, returning two months later you’d find the carts practically empty and you’d be shocked and very annoyed.

Canon needs to be sure that when a cleaning cycle is performed, the operator sits beside the printer and is able to see messages on the computer screen or the printer’s LCD, in case one or more carts must be replaced. That means that purges/cleanings may occur only when the user sends a printing job to the printer or performs a manual cleaning.

A different thing are maintenance routines that don’t waste ink. For instance, the Pro-10 has an option in the driver for ‘keeping the ink quality’. When this is enabled the machine moves very fast the carriage from left to right and vice versa for a couple of minutes, with the purpose of agitating the ink inside the carts and prevent pigment sedimentation. This process makes very loud noises and the whole printer vibrates wildly; no mistake with other tasks, Every now and then I noticed that when I switch on my Pro-10, instead of going online after 20-25 seconds, it spends a couple of minutes performing ’keeping ink quality’. I expect that this routine starts automatically every ‘x’ days when the printer is left on permanently.
Probably another automatic task would be to move the carriage from the parking position a bit and then back again, to clean the bottom plate of the printhead with the wipers.
 
Last edited:

jimbo123

Printer Master
Platinum Printer Member
Joined
Dec 2, 2007
Messages
478
Reaction score
378
Points
223
Location
USA - NJ
Printer Model
MP830 MP980
Q. any ballpark #s on how much ink is used for a nozzle check ?

J

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
• Active Printers: MX700, MX870, MP980, PRO-100
• Stored Printers: IP4500, MX700, MX860, MX870
• Past Printers: MP830
• Method: German Durchstich Method
• Ink: first Hobbicolors, then OCP, now ASPEN
• Misc: Squeeze bottles - so much easier than syringes
 

Latest posts

Top