Why in the world would Canon allow you to Disable Ink monitoring?

[jtoolman]

Just sitting here watching the tube and the thought came into my mind.
Why would Canon allow us to be able to disable the ink monitor feature?
An inexperienced user would think, "Oh Boy! I can squeeze every last drop of ink out of my cart" and possibly end up with a terminally damaged print head.
We are more experienced of course, and know better, only disable ink monitoring when we very well know we have already refilled our carts.
For instance, take the CLI-42s which do not have a chip resetting option. Why in the world would they allow us to be able to refill then and continue to use the same cart by simply disabling the ink monitor?

I seems like that would be the last thing they would include in the Canon Print Driver?

I can't imagine why, but maybe one of you all does have a logical reason as to why they would.

Joe

 

[mikling]

Because the ink monitor system by chip is too inaccurate. Epson printers is inaccurate to the degree of by up to 20% according to my tests. This collaborates with exactly the amt give or take that they lost a class action lawsuit for. That there was ink remaining when the printer says no more and the ink is wasted so Epson is ripping people off. Lawsuit time.

Ignorance led to a class action lawsuit which they lost. Engineering reasons.
That lawsuit led to sensors etc.

Canon cartridges by their very nature are also hit and miss with their accuracy according to chips. So if they allow people to disable the consumer can always get every single drop they paid for, even if doing so damages their printhead.

Now if you were Epson or Canon, do you think every "Joe" is going to buy the story that ink remaining ink in the cartridge is to protect the printer and not to rip them off?

 

[turbguy]

The original Canon optical prism system ink-out detector works very well to tell the printer when a cart is low. Simple, effective, and too easy.

The chips were added ONLY to impede refilling. Then came the ECM (Electronic Counter Measure) race of resetters.

IMO, the use of the chips should be subject to a challenge in a court of law.........

Wayne

 

[websnail]

Putting my OEM hat on I'd have to guess that one possible reason they also did it was because of the process involved.

Refilling with unknown inks that may or may not occlude the sensor (and stop it working) is not something you want to take responsibility for. When you consider some of the horrific "compatible" inks that are being sold either as bulk or pre-filled, that makes sense and it's easy to miss this given that we take the time to check. Most end-users, couldn't care less.

Forcing customers to accept a warning that what they're doing could damage the printhead (which it can) makes the customer responsible for their decisions too.

To be honest, it does actually strike me as being a pretty sensible balance of meeting the legal obligations while ensuring that customers are informed and unable to argue that they didn't know in further litigation.

If the boot were on the other foot, I'd do it...

 

[mikling]

The original Canon optical prism system ink-out detector works very well to tell the printer when a cart is low. Simple, effective, and too easy.

The chips were added ONLY to impede refilling. Then came the ECM (Electronic Counter Measure) race of resetters.

IMO, the use of the chips should be subject to a challenge in a court of law.........

Wayne

Low but not empty. Look at the newest 250/251 carts and this shortcoming is abundantly clear. The reservoir is empty but the sponge area still holds ink. In the low capacity verison, the sponge holds more than the reservoir. The empty countdown after the prism signal only starts after the prism signal and this is an estimate. The newest Epson implementation of the prism uses the prism signal as the empty. This is so because there is no buffer of the sponge in the Epson cartridge.
http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=67190#p67190

 

[The Hat]

Moving on from the ink empty warning you get on your Canon printer, I got a new one.

As most of you know already I balls up my Pro 1 in my attempts to fit an external waste ink tank (Old News),
after receiving the printer back from Canon they had also done a firmware upgrade, so what you may ask.

Now I get four different on screen ink indicators where as I used to only get three before this new upgrade.

First I get the classic yellow triangle (Low ink) then I get the big red X (Out of ink)
so I have to press the resume button to continue as normal.

After some time and a further warning the red X disappears and I get a completely empty ink tank on screen
showing nothing and once more I have to press the resume button to continue.

But this is where it gets interesting, add in the new upgrade bit, again after quite some time I get a new on screen warning,
this time its a large blue ? and I am now informed that the printer will no longer clean/purge that colour till I replace that empty ink tank.

Which of course is total bull * because it cant stop purging just one colour head it has to do all of them,
the head is split in three sections and once again I have to press the dreaded resume button to continue.

Normally I would find this final warning a bit upsetting and alarming because if I were to run out of ink accidently and didnt know I had
then I would end up damaging the print head, again this is not so because this cant actually happen with this printer.

So whats with all of these warning, and constant button pressing, I was told when I got my printer back from Service
that I must perform a system purge to get the printer to start, again this was porkys that wasnt necessary, a normal purge was more than adequate.

I dont know about litigation, lawsuits or legal obligations but Canon dont have spread the butter on thick with the good friendly advice they give you.
I had at one stage to press the resume button no less than fifteen times over a course of ten minutes to get the printer to continue, it that being friendly or just been a nuisance.

I will also mention that on one occasion I did just that, I stupidly ran out of ink on one tank and guess what nothing happened the world didnt end why.
Because once the printer detected no physical ink left in the tank it stopped instantly mid-print and ejected the sheet and gave a very large on screen notice.

Now all dough I didnt have any ink monitoring at that time the printer still gave an out of ink warning, With Replace ink tank NOW.
No button pressing was required this time thankfully because the printer wouldnt budge an inch.
So to answer Joes original question why do Canon allow you to disable the ink monitoring, Ive got no idea whatsoever why they allow it..

 

[Lucas28]

The disabling of the ink monitor has always been a service by Canon to let the consumer use his ink to the last drop. The user has paid for the ink, not?
Its also a possibility to print like in the good old days, when cartridges didnt have a chip.

I think the Canon method is normal, while the Epson method, where the printer simply blocks at low ink signal, is aggressive and consumer unfriendly.

Printers could have been made quite differently: Why use cartridge chips? Ink counters can be installed on the main board, automatic resetting after cartridge exchange.
And why use cartridges? Make build in ink tanks, that can be filled through a plug on top. Make PRO printers with a build in CIS.

Do printer manufacturers really think that the only way to make profit is to let people pay through the nose for cartridges? Let them act like camera manufacturers. We know what a Leica costs, so there is enough profit.

In another world printers could have been perfect :/

 

[mikling]

Here's the issue with the Epson. If you use the ink to the last drop and get air into the printhead, you have dug a hole. To refill the printhead with ink is not always straightforward. Sometimes stubborn air bubbles are trapped inside the printhead nozzles when they empty of ink. In unlucky but not unusual cases you can possibly use a significant part of a new cartridge to reprime the printhead properly as the only method is a series of head cleanings. That is the reason why Epson printhead MUST be kept filled with ink. The second reason is when ink has run out, and the printer is continued to be used, the possibility of a real clog then presents itself.

So in defense of Epson because of the design of the printhead, ink should always be available to the printhead. Take a look at my pictures of the newer Epson cartridges. That last chamber contains ink even when the cartridge is technically empty. I think there has been a lot of misguided thoughts on this topic for many years...thinking it was a conspiracy. It was not but OEM ink is expensive. That is what pays for the $89 Pro-100.

On the subject of cameras, do you recall squeezing 25 or 26 shots out of a 24 shot roll? and then sometimes the 26th shot was incomplete. Now if the 26th shot was incomplete and was potentially the best shot. ........that is the reason why I learned that 24 shots is what I can depend on and the last extra shots could cause more grief..especially when they charged you for processing the extra partial shots....like the last drops of ink.

 

[jtoolman]

I knew I would get some great answers to this question.

Since I am mostly a 3rd party ink user I don't really have an issue with whether EPSON or CANON shuts down my carts when there is still ink in them. I fully understand and agree with the need for residual ink to still be made available to the print head. I do not enjoy the ramifications of running ANY print head dry. Regardless of make.

If anyone is wondering how much ink is left in a cart after it is declared empty, I can only comment on the T58 / PRO 3800-3880 carts.
They officially hold 80ml and that is what you are officially paying for.
However they are actually loaded with 90ml of ink and if allowed to go till the printer stops printing, you will still have about 8-10ml of ink left in the ink bag.

I would certainly HATE to have to push out air out of those 3800/3880 ink lines and dampers, so I am thankful for that. Besides, you can suck out that leftover ink ink and use it.

I was just wondering why CANON has left that option opened to the end user and EPSON has not.

Joe

 

[ghwellsjr]

The chips were added ONLY to impede refilling.

That's not the only reason. Here are some more:

Without the chip, the printer can't even tell if a cartridge is inserted in the printer which means it can't tell if a cartridge is inserted all the way or if the wrong color cartridge is inserted.

Without the chip, the printer can't tell how long it has been since the optical sensor detected that the reservoir went empty, which means if a user removes a cartridge with the sponge almost empty, closes and opens the cover, re-inserts the same cartridge, the printer will think that the sponge is full.

There was a user that asked why his photos were coming out faded. It turns out he had purchases PM and PC cartridges for his 5-cartridge unchipped printer but it took a long time to figure that out. I don't know if Canon would have spotted the problem immediately but it could have led to a warranty replacement.

A friend of mine didn't fully insert a cartridge and as a result, no ink was supplied for that color and it permanently clogged some of those nozzles. This could lead to a warranty replacement.

Obviously, running a printer without cartridges or when the printer was fooled into thinking a cartridge had remaining ink when it was empty could also lead to warranty replacements. Trust me, most printer users are totally ignorant of things that are obvious to most of us and Canon has to deal with them. I don't fault Canon at all for putting chips in their cartridges. And since they also allowed the by-pass of the empty ink status, they obviously weren't making it impossible for us to refill, they just don't want to be responsible for replacing damaged printers under warranty when we do that.