Pixma 5000 doesn't recognize new cart

[bobk]

I never said anything about an "Incompatible Ink Message". I'm not getting any message at all. All that is happening is that the printer is printing pages without any ink from the cartridge in question and when I install a new cartridge, the printer doesn't go through the normal cycle.

 

[Trigger 37]

Bobk,...Wow,... I'm sorry,... I totally misread or misunderstood what I read in your post. When your not said "the printer is not recognizing the ink cart", I just thought that was some kind of error. That is why I mentioned that the iP5000 does not have chipped ink carts. Those of us that have the new printers that have chipped carts DO GET Similar messages. If I was to put anykind of ink cart in my iP6600D, I'm sure I would get an "Do not recognize ink cart" error message. That is why Canon put the chips on each ink cart. So you can't use anyones ink carts but theirs.

Now, back to your problem. What your expecting is that when you put in a new ink cart, the printer should go through a cleaning process. It can only see if there is some ink or no ink. It does this via a little prism that is inside the bottom of the front part of the ink cart, where there is a reservoir of just ink, no sponge material. Inside the printer on the far left is a photo/LED combination. The carriage moves the printhead to the far left and passes the unit over the sensor and in doing this it can sense the ink content of each ink cartridge. It can not measure the level, it is just a yes or not answer. However, as a result of this yes or no it puts a mark in the eeprom for that ink cart. The mark says, the ink was very low or out that last time I check. Now if you replace an ink cart because it told you that it was low, when you put in the new one, and try to print, it will check the ink level, see that there is a new ink cart, and do a cleaning cycle an all the colored or black ink, which ever one it was. So the answer is, you have to wait till it senses that the ink is low before you replace a ink cart.

As far as the normal cycle, you may have seen the printer go through normal cleaning cycles. If you turn your printer off every night, the next day when you turn it on and it has been over 12 hours, it will do an automatic cleaning cycle. If you have left it on, if it has been over 12 hours since you last tried to print anything, it will do a cleaning cycle.

You said you were not getting a good nozzle test and that there was no black print at all. There are two black ink carts. The large one is for the black text printing and is not used in photos. The BCI-6blk is not used that much but is increase the size of the color gamut in photo printing. This could be a lot of different problems, including a bad printhead. However, you could try the normal cleaning tricks that other have suggested to see if it really is a bad head. If you have already purchased a new printer, you may not want to waste the time.

Sorry again for getting off on the wrong direction. It is funny how a misread can cause so much wasted time.