Canon Chip Resetter Reports

Defcon2k

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Loiner said:
Does the redsetter reset the chips when you have used the release function for detecting the remaining ink level?
Yes, that should be no problem.


Btw, my guess is this: RKS wanted to sell their own resetter, but the producer could not deliver in time. So they chose to buy the redsetter instead and ship it to their customers. I think most people don't care if their resetter is black or red. The only big difference is that the RKS resetter was advertised to have replacable batteries, but the redsetter battery is advertised as non-replacable (although you can do so if you carefully open the redsetter).
Maybe we will see the black RKS resetter at some point in the future. But atm it seems that there are only two resetters availabe: Redsetter and the chinese one which you have to connect to your printer with two cables.
 

Zap

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Loiner said:
Does the redsetter reset the chips when you have used the release function for detecting the remaining ink level?
Yes! It reset all of my cartages which had been refilled many, many, times, the release function of the printer had been used for every one of them. Then the redsetter reset the same cartages, and when placed back into the printer, the printer treated them just as if they were brand new Canon cartages, with all the ink level report working. Showing the ink level dropping as printing went on.

Since I received my redsetter (RKS) 2 days ago, several of my cartages has gone through the first reset and refill, ink used up, and cartages reset and refilled again.

The printer again reports the ink level on all of my refill cartages, just like they were new. No more running out of ink because I forgot to check the ink level before starting a print job.

I am running two Canon ip4200 printers. I am constantly refilling and reusing four sets of cartages for the two printers.

Jack
 

stratman

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Just curious... it is assumed that Canon uses a two-pronged approach to monitoring ink levels:

1) Counting the number of sprays done to guage when the cartridge is empty

2) An LED or LCD (?) light that shines into the cartridge which indicates lack of ink in the spongeless side (?)

IF these assumptions are correct, and IF one does not refill the cartridge to the same number of ml's as found in a new OEM Canon cartridge, THEN how well does the printer do in monitoring ink levels?

In other words, is it possible the reset chip and the printer think there is still ink in the cartridge when there is not, possibly resulting in a burned out printhead?

My concern is just because the chip is reset it does not guarantee ink monitoring will be as precise as with a new OEM cartridge.

Then again, there is ink still in the sponge when Canon declares a new OEM cartridge empty. This could act as a buffer, a built in safeguard, to prevent printing on a totally empty cartridge by design.
 

Zap

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stratman said:
Just curious... it is assumed that Canon uses a two-pronged approach to monitoring ink levels:

1) Counting the number of sprays done to guage when the cartridge is empty

2) An LED or LCD (?) light that shines into the cartridge which indicates lack of ink in the spongeless side (?)

IF these assumptions are correct, and IF one does not refill the cartridge to the same number of ml's as found in a new OEM Canon cartridge, THEN how well does the printer do in monitoring ink levels?

In other words, is it possible the reset chip and the printer think there is still ink in the cartridge when there is not, possibly resulting in a burned out printhead?

snip-
I think that I see what you are getting at. So let me say this, In My opinion, If you reset the chip when the cartage is empty, and then do not refill the cartage, but instead put that same empty reset cartage back into the printer without the adding of ink, and then continue to print until there is no ink at all going out onto the paper, then most likely you will burn out the print head for that color. I say most likely because I do not know what would really happen.

But that would be the same as if you had not reset the chip at all and bypassed the ink level reporting so that you could continue to print with your known empty cartage until it too actually had no ink left to put out. You would also burn out your print head for that color.

The same for resetting a half empty cartage and then putting it back in the printer without adding more ink. When it reached the point where there was no ink left to come out, and you see blank pages, your guess as to what would happen is just as good as mine. I am not about to attempt to do that just to see how the ink level would be reported.

Either way, that would be a deliberate attempt to destroy your own printer. So why would anyone do that?????? I cannot, or did not, conceive of anyone deliberately doing that. Nor can I see it happening by accident.

What I do know, is that I have had cartages run dry on the liquid ink side for an unknown period of time and was still printing at the time that I checked the ink level, and I have never ran it down to the point where it was not printing, so the sponge side does hold a considerable amount of ink even when the printer reports it to be out of ink.

But if you happen to have a couple of unused printers on hand and would like to experiment then please do, and then report back to all of us the results of such test. I think that would be an interesting experiment.

Jack
 

stratman

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Zap:

Your premise of using a half filled but fully reset chipped cartridge would make for a quicker and definitive experiment to tell if the printer will determine the cartridge as appropriately empty.

My question dealt with more likely real life situation of refillers. I think, though I am not 100% sure, that the cartridges I refill do not have exactly 13 ml of ink like new CLI-8 OEM Canon cartridges. (I suppose I could weigh them after refilling and compare that value to new OEM cartridge weight.) I'll bet after refilling that sometimes there is LESS than 13 ml of ink, maybe significantly as in 11-12 ml total.

What, then, happens to the accuracy of ink level monitoring when you reset and use these slightly less than totally filled cartridges? If Canon relies on number of nozzle firings then you will run out of ink before your printer tells you the cartridge is empty. If Canon relies on the LED prism method (or whatever light method used) then most likely the printer will appropriately inform you of the cartridge as empty no matter how much ink was present in the cartridge after being reset.

Maybe Canon realized that a catastrophic cartridge failure could occur where ink could leak from a cartridge and lead to an earlier than expected (by nozzle fire numbers) depletion of ink. Therefore, Canon uses the light/prism method to determine when a cartridge is empty.

Maybe the buffer Canon designed into it's monitoring system, where there still is ink left in the sponge when the cartridge is declared empty, is enough to overcome small differences in total ml's of ink in a refilled cartridge versus a new OEM cartridge.

Refilling is not an exact science for most when it comes to total ml's of ink in a refilled cartridge. The big question is whether a reset cartridge can be trusted to be appropriately determined as empty no matter how much ink is present after the reset so that a printhead failure can be avoided.
 

Zap

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stratman said:
Zap:

Your premise of using a half filled but fully reset chipped cartridge would make for a quicker and definitive experiment to tell if the printer will determine the cartridge as appropriately empty.

My question dealt with more likely real life situation of refillers. I think, though I am not 100% sure, that the cartridges I refill do not have exactly 13 ml of ink like new CLI-8 OEM Canon cartridges. (I suppose I could weigh them after refilling and compare that value to new OEM cartridge weight.) I'll bet after refilling that sometimes there is LESS than 13 ml of ink, maybe significantly as in 11-12 ml total.

What, then, happens to the accuracy of ink level monitoring when you reset and use these slightly less than totally filled cartridges? (snip)
Ah, my friend. I am not the most knowledgeable person in these matters, and of course I bow to your greater knowledge.

However I thought that I had answered that question when I said

What I do know, is that I have had cartages run dry on the liquid ink side for an unknown period of time and was still printing at the time that I checked the ink level, and I have never ran it down to the point where it was not printing, so the sponge side does hold a considerable amount of ink even when the printer reports it to be out of ink.
I just cannot help wondering just how much ink that Canon has really put into those new cartages.

Now I only know what I have been reading on this and other sites, with a little of my own experience thrown in. So I don't really know much. But I have noticed that you cannot put 13ml of ink into an empty cli cartage unless it has been purged, and dried which makes it totally empty. At least that is what the postings say, and that is what I found to be true by my own experience.

So from that, I then notice that when I do put the full 13 ml of ink into a clean, purged, and dried cli-8 cartage that the ink soaks all the way to the top of the sponge side. Now when I compare that to the New Canon cli-8 cartage I see that the New Canon Cartage has the top sponge clean without any ink in it. So I scratch my head a bit and have to conclude that Canon has not put 13 ml of ink into their new Cartages. Now I must be wrong on that but it sure does look that way to me. Perhaps I do not have my cartage as dry as I thought? or else Canon has not put as much ink in their Cartage than we do when we refill.

But from the above. My own poor example of logic tells me that a difference of one or two ML of ink less on a cartage refill will have no appreciable effect on the printer declaring the cartage empty. There will still be sufficient ink in the sponge side to cover such a difference.

Perhaps someone else with more experience can give a better or more accurate answer to his questions.

Jack
 

pebe

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I have an MP600 and have now replaced my first two carts. I installed InkMon5 to monitor the levels and have periodically taken out the carts to verify that I have InkMon5 set up right and to make adjustments to its usage figures.

I have noticed that the Canon's ink warning light comes on as soon as there is no ink in the spongeless side, but it will let me carry on printing.

I believe that the IR sensor built into the machine may trigger the warning, and update the EEPROM in the chip so that after some further predetermined amount of ink has been used, the cart shows as empty.

That way, Canon can get a much more accurate indication of ink used.
 

stratman

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Zap:

I don't recall putting in 13 ml of ink into a purged, empty and dry cartridge. I think the most I put in was 12 ml and change. And the ink rose above the sponge.

Maybe my syringes are not calibrated porperly and the number of ml's I refilled were more than it showed.

I have a couple of purged, dry and empty cartridges that I'll fill and make a point to pay attention to the ml's refilled.



Pebe:

The sequence of events you list sounds reasonable. One would think that even if you did not fill the spongeless side all the way that the sponged side would equilibrate to factory spec ink levels in a short period of time after refilling, therefore ensuring that once the spongeless side was marked as empty that there would be a dependable/consistent amount of ink remaining in the sponge from which to count down nozzle sprays until determined empty.

If so, then as long as you reset the chip and begin to use the cartridge with some amount of ink in the spongeless side, meaning the sponged side is able to equilibrate with ink appropriately, the printer's mechanism for determining "empty" will accurately work.

An obvious experiment to determine if your postulate may be true is to reset the chip on a purged cartridge that has one or two ml's of ink in the sponge (less than factory spec but enough to prime and begin printing) and none in the spongeless side. If nozzle fires are used to determine empty then the printer will continue to print even when there is no ink spray down.

For those that use resetters this may be important in how much one can rely upon a reset chip to keep from burning out a printhead, and, what parameters their reset chip must be used within.
 

jackson

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Since 'Zap' reports that the carts have been through the cycle more than once, and the 'reset 'carts are accepted by the printer, then it matters not the amount of ink that has been added.
Surely the IR ink level feature must supersede the number of pin firings, inasmuch as it's entirely possible to purchase a genuine Canon cart which leaks it's contents away before the chip has recorded the ink being exhausted, else there is no point in having the optical detection system.
 

wilko

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I purchased a Canon chip redsetter from Germany last week. I reset all the ink cartridges in my ip4500 and then refilled them with ink. They showed as full in the ink monitor and yellow is now showing a slight decrease, all the rest show as still full.

It cost me 30 inc postage to the UK. Ink and long needles are also available at extra cost but I just went with the redsetter as I use Hobbicolors ink.

No doubt the cost of the redsetter will come down but I expect Canon will close this loophole with the next printer series.
 
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