What happens if I 3/4 refill and reset cartridge?

[OM2]

What happens if I 3/4 refill and reset cartridge?

Does the printer pickup that the cartridge is 3/4 full and show this in indicators?

Since otherwise there's no point in having a chip resetter since you can tell the printer to ignore ink levels
(Well, at least I know you can do this in some Canons)

Thanks


Omar

 

[stratman]

There are conflicting reports over several models of printers. I don't recall anyone reporting a burned out print head from your specific scenario, but it might be because of vigilance in manually checking ink levels.

Would you like to do an experiment?

 

[jopereira]

The cartridge chip is just a counter that you reset at will. It does no measure ink level in the cartridge.
With a cartridge full and a reset made you can expect level ink indications to be 'correct' so you don't have to watch out ink level every hour (or so...)

 

[OM2]

oh... this is not the answer i was expecting!
i thought the printer itself would be able to judge how much ink was in the cartridges and then report back accordingly!

just to clarify, if i have an ink cartridge that is half full and i stick it into a another printer, then that printer will report that ink cartridge as being full?

thanks

 

[The Hat]

OM2 just to clarify, if i have an ink cartridge that is half full and I stick it into a another printer, then that printer will report that ink cartridge as being full?

Nope the chip will still have the last say, so if the cartridge is half full the other printer
will show the same level of ink as it did in the previous one.

The best way to refill a cartridge is to full only and then chance the cartridge when the printer
is warning of low ink and youll never have a problem..

 

[OM2]

Nope the chip will still have the last say, so if the cartridge is half full the other printer
will show the same level of ink as it did in the previous one.

sorry... not making much sense to me
let's say i start with a full ink cartridge
i then suck out 3/4 of the ink
what happens then
what does the printer show?
does it show only 1/4 left?
how does it determine this?

The best way to refill a cartridge is to full only and then chance the cartridge when the printer
is warning of low ink and youll never have a problem..

not sure what u mean by "chance"?

i kinda thought i knew it all - still seems as though i'm learning!
thanks

 

[stratman]

let's say i start with a full ink cartridge
i then suck out 3/4 of the ink
what happens then
what does the printer show?
does it show only 1/4 left?
how does it determine this?

Good question that logically flows from your first. The answer is the same as in my first post - conflicting reports. Because your questions are logical, others have proposed them before. Use the search function on the terms "LED prism nozzle counts" or some combination to find multiple posts on this subject. You are also free to do the experiment and report back. We would welcome your data.

Before chips, printers used an LED shining on a prism to determine various levels of fluid (ink) inside the cartridge. Since using chips, it appears that Canon kept the LED-Prism system but that it may be non-functional, at least on reset cartridges or once ink level monitoring has been turned off.

The presumed method of ink monitoring now is via the chip and some sort of counting of nozzle sprays or print driver instructions on amount and duration of nozzle sprays or that specific ink use overall per print job.

Is this all conjecture on the forum or does someone know the facts? Don't know, but it sounds reasonable to me. In any case, ink monitoring is useful to help alert you when a cartridge needs or is close to needing refilling. I have never had a cartridge run out of ink while the ink monitoring system still read as having ink left to use. You either need to refill cartridges to proper levels or go short on the amount refilled and use the one of the ink warnings to prompt you to refill at that point. Trying to game the system will probably get you in trouble at some point in time.

I don't know precisely what you mean by filling to 3/4 full. Do you mean 3/4 the amount of ink in an OEM new cartridge? Do you mean 3/4 to the top of the spongeless side? Please talk in milliliters added or the spongeless side being filled to X distance from the top. In this way, we will all know what you mean. Be specific.

 

[rodbam]

From what I gather reading on these forums it's believed the chipped printers probably report the amount of ink left by counting how many squirts of ink it has squirted as though the manufacturer has worked out a full cartridge has say 10,000 squirts before it's empty. I think this is why there's a danger of relying on the ink monitor because if you have a cartridge only a 1/4 full & reset the chip it will register as being full & capable of 10,000 squirts & when it runs out of ink & you keep printing because the ink monitor is still reporting the cartridge as 3/4 full the print head could partially burn out because no ink is going through from that empty cartridge. No one really knows but it's better safe than sorry for us to visually check how much ink is in the cartridge. Like Hat said you will get to a stage of knowing that your refilled cartridge will still have a bit of ink left on the first low ink warning so you use that as the signal to refill again.
Regards Rod

 

[OM2]

thanks for the replies
i didn't know this was an established questioned - else i would have searched before asking (not sure what keywords i would have searched for though!)

i'll definitely be cautious when refilling + will always refill once i get a first warning
i think that rule should be on a strict list of things to do to be honest!
i'd done lots of reading before filling up and had never come across this + only now know because of my original question posted to this thread

regarding 3/4 - it was just saying that assuming that the carts where three quarters full - just a rough estimation and no measurements invovled
i think i got my answers in the replies though

having said all of that, i would have assumed that the printer manufacturers would have something a LOT more precise than just relying on the number of squirts!!
i simply can't believe this to be true - surely there MUST be a little more science than this

ink carts are mass manufactured and therefore every cart will not have EXACTLY the same amount
some maybe will have 10,000 squirts and others may have 10,500 squirts
and some may accidentally have 9,500 squirts

not sure if this sounds really dumb, but has anyone tried asking canon how it's really done?

 

[The Hat]

OM2 not sure if this sounds really dumb, but has anyone tried asking canon how it's really done?

You can ask but dont wait on an answer because what has been quoted on here is all we got,
however Canon does build in a 10% margin just to be sure.

I tried resetting my set of cartridges on one of my printers iP4500 when the cartridges
were showing half full visually and got some very mixed results.

Two of the cartridges when the reservoir were empty gave a low ink warning but the other two cartridges
despite being empty for quite some time continued to print perfectly with no warnings.

I tried the same experiment again this time one cartridge showed low ink warning,
another ran out of ink and stopped printing all together but the other two kept going to a point
where I got tired watching them and just refill them.

Conclusion no one knows just how much ink is stored in the sponge of an OEM cartridge
and I think that is why I got different results with my 4 cartridges but the one thing I did learn
is that the chip controls the ink information and not the cartridge or printer, so changing printers makes no difference
as the information is stored in the chip + the 10%.

One other thing to note is when refilling most people tend to over fill their cartridges
(including myself) not intentionally even when using the full reservoir method.. :|