Questions about number of pages printed & cheap ink/damage

[Brazos]

What a great site! First post. I have been refilling my cartridges for about 8 or 9 years and with a what I would call an above average success rate. I found this site last night & have learned more about inkjets/refilling in a few hours than all the years of trial & error. I run my printers hard - 100+ pages a day on the average & gone through 4 or 5 inkjet printers over the years. I using a Canon I960 now. I have been using cheap ink from the wholesale stores (or ink that I purchased by the quart years ago) or lately been buying cartiridges from E-bay. I'm now having problems printing - no surpise! Part of the problem is the cartiridges, ink that does not meet current printer standards & the need of cleaning. I just placed an order from Inkgrabber and will be cleaning the unit according to the info on this site. I will also buy a set of the original Canon cartidges & try refilling with some of the recomended ink. Now for a few questions.

1. How do I determine how many pages I have printed on the I-960? How many pages is practical before it or the print head just wears out? This printer is about 1 1/2 years old - so I have run alot of pages.

2. Have I done serious damage to the print head due to the cheap universal ink & cartidges?

I'm sold on Canon printers. I'm on my 2nd Canon for business & our family have 3 others. Great economical printers - much happier than the HP printers I use to run.

I would appreciate any info you can share with me & I'll try to not ask to many questions. I know to search the forum & it probably has been asked & answered but also wanted to say thanks for this site.

 

[panos]

I had printed around 30k-40k pages before replacing the printhead, using cheap ink. I compared nozzle checks between the old and the new printhead and while the pigmented black output had deteriorated in the old printhead, the dye output (3 colors and dye black) was the same.

I don't think you've done serious damage by using cheap ink, unless you printed a large number of pages on failing nozzles.

 

[Defcon2k]

1. How do I determine how many pages I have printed on the I-960? How many pages is practical before it or the print head just wears out? This printer is about 1 1/2 years old - so I have run alot of pages.

You can check this by doing an EEPROM information print in service mode (see below). Look for the part which says PAGE=xxx or PAGE(All=xxx).

I don't know about the i960, but the i950 has a life expectancy of 10000 pages for the body and 9000 pages for the print head, according to the service manual.

A) Entering service mode:
- make sure the printer is turned off.
- press and hold the [resume] button, and then press and hold the [power] button. (Now you are holding both buttons down)
- release the [resume] button (but do not take the finger off the power button)
- press 2x [resume]
- release the [power] button

B) Functions available in service mode:
Once you have entered the service mode, you can select one of the functions mentioned below by pressing the resume button the specified number of times and confirm that selection by pressing the power button. (btw: to give you some optical feedback, the indicator LED toggles between orange and green each time the resume button is pressed.)

- 1x [resume], then [power]: extended nozzle check
- 2x [resume], then [power]: EEPROM information print
- and many more, which could mess up your printer if you don't know what you're doing.

You can leave service mode by pressing [power] without pressing resume before.

 

[Brazos]

Thank you Panos & Defcon2k for your response. I checked the EEPRON info and it indicates the following:
PAGE (ALL=31216 PP=31194 HR=00000 PR=00001 SP=00005 MP=00010 PC=0000 OTHER=00001)
It appears I'm at 31,000+ on printed pages. Probably about 3/4 of the printing was with the cheap ink/cartridges. So I'm porbably running on borrowed time. My print copy has only been fair for a good while - but I was attributing it to the cheap ink/cart. The printer is really used only for my own office information - so quality is not a real high priority (everything I send out is PDF files) or I can send to a networked fax/mutipurpose unit. I going to try the orignal cartridges and and the Inkgrabber/G&G cartridges & see if that helps.

I'm bidding on ebay for another I960 as a back up. Is it better just to look for another I960 or buy a print head? I'm leaning towarding buying another unit since I already have 31,000+ on this unit. It seems most of the new Canons now uses chips. What do you recomend - EBay or a new unit?

Again thanks for the responses - you're great.

 

[Defcon2k]

I don't know... I think the printer body will be ok for a while, if you did not have any problems yet.

But some other things you might want to consider:

- Check the waste ink counter. If it is nearly full, you will have to reset it soon and probably have to dismantle the printer and change the waste ink pads.
Look for the part on the EEPROM info print which says D=xxx.x, this is the waste ink counter in %.

- Quality prints are apparently not you primary goal: you said it yourself, and one can see on the EEPROM info that you printed nearly all pages on plain paper (PP=31194).
Therefore I think you probably don't need a photo printer like the i960 (which has no pigment ink, but two photo colors). Text quality on plain paper would be better if you had a printer with pigment ink. Photo colors make the print more expensive, but on plain paper you probably won't see a difference to a printer without photo ink.

 

[panos]

great assessment on the quality requirement Defcon!

 

[Brazos]

Thank you Defcon. I checked the EEPROM and it indicates the waste ink counter to be 76.60%. I don't know what the magic number is but it will be just a matter of time. I'll study up on the forum regarding resetting it.

Yes quality prints is not my priority on this printer. It is a business printer for in office use. I'll check on other options with printers with pigment ink. Again thank you for your help.

 

[Lilla]

Brazos, Welcome to the group!

I checked the EEPROM and it indicates the waste ink counter to be 76.60%. I don't know what the magic number is but it will be just a matter of time. I'll study up on the forum regarding resetting it.

Neil's Inkjet Page this link has a procedure for cleaning the Waste Ink Absorber and resetting the counter.

The D=xxx.x (waste ink counter) value appears on the Extended Nozzle Check and on the EEPROM information printout. This is shown by Nifty-Stuff.com on his Extended Nozzle Check -- see his Posts #1 and #9 (in the same thread as Post #10 below).

Grandad35 in Post #10 this link writes...

...snip... It is my guess that the "D=" number is 100 when the tank is completely full (but it would be great if someone could could confirm this). Since these are service manuals not meant for the general public, it appears to be Canon's repair policy to reset the waste ink counter to 0 if it is less than 7% when a printer is brought in for service, but to replace the pad if the counter is >7%. Your tank is only 15.7% full, so they would replace the pad if your printer was taken in for service, but it has a long way to go before you get "the message". ...snip...

Craig Ross in Post #18 this link writes...

How many times can you reset ink waste levels without actually cleaning the pads? I actually pulled the printer apart first time I got this message, rinsed the pads let them dry for a day and reassembled. I've gotten a lot lazier since then and have reset it three times since then,without cleaning,although I probably would,nt recommend it. My answer to cleaning the pad without pulling the printer apart was to vacuum ink out with a syringe.

Grandad35 in Post #22 this link writes...

I don't know how much reserve capacity is in the ink pads, but I would think that in 5 years that the water in the ink has almost completely evaporated from your pads. Since ink is over 90% water, this should give you a lot of extra capacity, assuming that the printer doesn't take evaporation into consideration for its alarm.

I have no direct experience with this, but from what I have read there can be quite a mess if the ink starts to ooze out of the printer. If your printer is located on something where an ink drip wouldn't cause a problem, I wouldn't worry about it. If it is located on something like a valuable desk or in a carpeted room, I would put something like a cookie sheet under it as a security measure.

 

[Defcon2k]

If you want to reset your waste ink counter, you can enter service mode as described above, and then do this:

- 4x [resume], then [power]: resets waste ink counter

But I would only do this if the printer says that the waste ink pads are 100% full and stops printing.

When it says so, you can reset the counter as mentioned above, and then decide if you want to clean the waste ink pads ( I would advise to do so... better save than sorry).

Here are a couple of workshops for replacing the waste ink pads of various printers, and this should be the workshop for the printer closest to your i960. I guess you don't speak german, but perhaps the pictures will give you an idea what to expect and to look for inside the printer.

If you print really very much, you could even try to make your own external waste ink container, like this.

 

[Brazos]

Wow - this is educational. I will probably wait awhile longer to reset the waste ink counter - until I get closer to 95 to 100%. And the pictures on the German website will help. Thank each of you for taking the time to help a newbie.

I think it's not only the money that you can save refilling - it's also the challenge of learning, maintaining & maximizing the quality for the printer/amount spent. It's kinda like my cars - I could trade more often but there is just something satisfing when it rolls over 160,000 to 170,000 miles and still a good car because it has been maintained. I know - I've done a poor job on the printer using cheap ink but I'm changing my ways (sometimes I'm too cheap). I'm also getting into photography so maybe I'll start using the I960 for what it is designed to do - now I wonder how many pages I can get on this unit. Thanks