black and white printing without using color inks?

[PeterBJ]

At power on and at some intervals determined by timers and counters most or maybe all inkjet printers do a printhead cleaning. All nozzles are cleaned, both black and colours. This consumes ink from all cartridges, even if you only do black and white printing. So all inks are needed also for black and white only printing.

 

[crgrove]

Are there any Canon (or other brand) ink jet models that allow you to print in black and white without any use of the color inks. And also will allow the black and white printing when a color cartridge is out of ink.

There's an issue with printing only black that many people don't realize... IF you just wish to print text, that would be fine and I would suggest that you take up The Hat's suggestion and get a cheap HP or Brother LED/Laser printer (which use "toner")... Mine was a $108 and I never have to worry about things drying out. HOWEVER... most black inks are not actually very black and when you print black on a colour inkjet, small bits of other colours are mixed in. This is called "Rich Black". Google it... it is a fascinating subject. This MAY be why they design printers so that you have to replace the colour cartridges when they run out, despite wishing to just print in black/greyscale.
As technologies change and we learn to make "blacker" inks, this issue/problem/feature(?) may change with it.
Cheers!

 

[ink&paper]

 

[ink&paper]

View attachment 14232

The above is a photo of a black and white print with no color. I used a low cost HP T120, and told it was printing on matt film, which then prints in gray scale on glossy which had been loaded. It uses pigment black which I fix with a lght coad of gloss clear coat (There's a couple of shiny spots from th lamp used ti illuminate the print).
These machines are pretty low cost but they are 2400 x 1200 DPI annd so make a good print.

 

[The Hat]

The above is a photo of a black and white print with no color.

That pic would make an excellent POW…

 

[ink&paper]

That pic would make an excellent POW…

Not taken by me unfortunately.

 

[The Hat]

Not taken by me unfortunately.

Still, submit it anyway we won’t tell.. It deserves it..