What ink tanks are needed for printing black-and-white documents?

[BostonFern]

I made a mistake of buying cheap cartridges on ebay , and now my PGBK printhead is clogged with black dye ink.

I do have a lot of black dye ink that can be used to refill BK tank. Is this the only thing I need in order to print black-and-white documents?

I have a Canon MX860 color printer.

 

[turbguy]

What is your evidence that the PGBK is clogged? Typically dye inks won't clog PGBK nozzles, but they could interact with residual ink left in the print head, or the cart may not be delivering ink, or the purge unit for PGBK could be defective...

Wayne

 

[BostonFern]

I don't really know a lot about printer, so it's all my speculation... which may not be correct.

I don't remember exactly what happened... My printing quality was good until one day all my black-and-white documents came out with a greenish tint. After that, the print quality dramatically deteriorated. Or, the sudden deterioration happened right after I replaced two ink tanks that were low on ink.

After deterioration, I did many nozzle checks, and the grid after PGBK had many bars missing, and they were all at the same place. All the other color looked fine.

Last night I soaked my printhead in 50/50 water and Windex , maybe for an hour. Then I let it air-dry. After that, the PGBK grid looked only slightly better, and the long solid bar after BK was completely missing. I printed a small document, which came out all right. Not what it should be, but slightly better than yesterday.

Anyway, my question is what ink tanks are needed to print black and white documents?

 

[The Hat]

Unfortunately the only way to test your print head is to use cartridges that you know are good and working properly,
otherwise you cant tell if its a blockage at all or a cartridge ink problem, i.e. (Poor ink flow)

When you have a print problem and clearly you have then you shouldnt print anything
other than nozzle checks till you can resolve your problem entirely.

If you run any cleaning cycles and nozzle checks you should examine them for any improvements overall in output,
if they dont improve then clearly other steps will have to be taken.

None of this is possible if you dont first check your cartridges, and putting BK black into your PGBK cartridge
as turbguy mentioned wont cause a clog in your print head in fact it usually clears them.

You say you buy cheap cartridges on eBay, they shouldnt clog the print head either but and this is the important bit to remember
if you then refill these cartridges now youre in it right up to your neck.

You should only refill OEM cartridges, the other cheap cartridges should be disposed of when empty simply because
they can and will fail to provide your print head with enough ink resulting in very poor print quality
which can then result in subsequent premature print head failure.

Now your question on what inks are needed to print a B&W document.

That will depend entirely on which application your using to print out your documents, if it is Word or any other text editor
then only the PGBK black cartridge will be used and none of the others, BUT

My printing quality was good until one day all my black-and-white documents came out with a greenish tint.

Now that statement above clearly shows that your printing your documents in an application that is used for general text and graphics purposes
so the answer to your question is,the BK Black, Magenta, Cyan and Yellow and not in fact the PGBK Black at all.

So going on the fact your documents came out greenish would suggest that its the Magenta cartridge which is failing
to deliver enough ink to complete the mix for you, again which has nothing to do with black at all.

If youre going to continue to refill your cartridges then I would strongly suggest you use only your OEM cartridges
Their the best, the ones that came with your printer, or get an empty set from eBay.

The other alternative is to continue to use the cheap eBay cartridges which will work well for you
so long as youre not tempted to refill them once they become empty again..

 

[BostonFern]

Thank you for your advice.

I print things from different applications. Right now, I'm using Adobe Acrobat to print a long pdf file. I assume it uses PGBK.

I have an empty oem canon PGBK cartridge that's put aside for a long time. Can I simply fill it with the dye ink I have? Or do I need to do something with the cartridge first?

 

[turbguy]

Printing from Adobe Acrobat may use all the colors to produce black rather than the PGBK cart.

Try printing something from a text editor directly (Word, Wordpad, Notepad....) and see if it's different. Make up a test document with small and large fonts.

I would suggest purging and drying the PGBK cart first, as there could be an unexpected reaction between the residual Pigment ink and your Dye ink. Also hopefully you have covered that stored cart's outlet port and air vent, else the pigment will dry in the sponge and cause ink feed problems, even after purging efforts.

Wayne

 

[barfl2]

How is the PGBK cart blocked with dye ink ? did you refill it? The Hat is absolutely correct a greenish hue means Magenta flow problems, so therefore investigate that cart. Either purge and refill or replace with another. turboguy instructions will enable you to just use the PGBK cart and establish how it is effecting your output.

Finally your print head soak may not have been long enough. I would give it several hours and also squirt windex or similar on the input screens particularly the LARGE PGBK one.

Good luck we have all been there and patience is great importance.