Canon using all cartridges in greyscale

[MarkWester]

Hi everyone,

My daughter recently purchased a Pixma iP4850, which uses 5 cartridges: two black ones (one big and one small), one yellow, one cyan and one magenta. She mostly just prints documents in black and white, so we were stunned when we realized the printer was using up color. I've talked to a friend of mine who said this type of printer probably mixes the colors together to create the black. I was shocked. Why is is using up color when we didn't ask it to print in color??? And what is the purpose of the black cartridges then? It just makes no sense to me.

It seems quite a waste of money and I see no option for black and white in my printing dialogue. I did use the grayscale option but it still seems to make no difference, as the printer STILL uses some color! I've tried everything from downgrading the quality to taking the color cartridges out but of course the printer won't work without the set (very stupid system, I say!). I was thinking about using empty color cartridges but I'm pretty sure the printer is smart enough to detect those and not work.

Sorry about the big post but I'm just puzzled as to why they would create such a printer without at least giving the users some options to save money. I'll be refilling the cartridges for the first time this week, see if I can save some bucks... I'm hoping they won't be rejected by the printer. In terms of quality, I actually don't care so much.

Any help solving this mystery?? I really wish I could save color and just use the black... At least for the most part. Thanks!

 

[Lucas28]

Most printers add some color to the black text to get a deeper black. This can't be switched off.
It is useful because it keeps some ink flow through the color head; the color head will get clogged if it is unused during a longer time.

If you don't mind about a clogged color head, you can leave the empty color carts in the printer and reset the ink warnings. A dry color head can eventually get damaged, but that doesn't matter if you are not interested in photo prints.

A black only laser or LED printer would have been a better choice.

 

[PeterBJ]

The printer cleans the print head by sucking ink through the nozzles. This cleaning happens at start up and at some intervals determined by timers and counters, by using a pump. It is necessary to clean all the nozzles, both black and colours to keep the print head in good working order. This is the explanation that coloured ink is also consumed, even if only black is printed. All ink jet printers use some of the ink for this necessary automated cleaning.

The The reason for the two black cartridges is that the larger cartridge contains pigment black ink, which is better for printing black text in plain paper documents than dye black.

For photo printing pigment black ink is unsuitable, instead the smaller dye black plus dye colour ink cartridges are used.

 

[MarkWester]

Thank you for your responses! I do understand it a bit better, but still don't agree with the system lol

Indeed my daughter made a poor buy, since she is not interested in photo quality or anything of the sort. Mostly she just prints documents for college and personal use - she wants fast printing, regardless of quality (so far as it's readable, it's quite fine). The reason why she bought this printer was because it was on sale. Of course she forgot the cartridges' cost, so now we're stuck with a poor investment... I still have a lot to teach her!

I'm thinking of getting another printer and selling this one to someone who really needs it. Since I'm always on a budget, which printer would you recommend we'd buy (model)? I want something as cheap as possible, but if that's not possible right away, I want cartridges that are cheap and will make up for it in the long run. Again, I'm not interested in printing quality or color. We generally just use black and white / greyscale.

P.S.: I'd like to try using the empty color cartridges and just refill the black ones, but will that damage the printer? I want to sell it sometime so that wouldn't be good...

 

[PeterBJ]

I think it might be possible to sell the printer, as it uses the PGI-525/CLI-526 cartridges for which a resetter exists. The cartridges are opaque, but can be refilled. Some use the windowed PGI-520/CLI-521 cartridges with the chips from the opaque cartridges attached for an easier refill. With the exception of some high-end photo printers all newer Canon ink jet printers use the PGI-550/CLI-551 cartridges which are also opaque and no resetter exists for these cartridges, making them unsuitable for refilling. The iP4850 might be one of the last relatively easily refillable Canon printers available, so maybe it is worth keeping and learning to refill the cartridges?

I don't know very much about laser printers, but maybe someone can suggest a good reasonably priced laser printer for home use with reasonably low running costs?

Trying to run the printer with empty cartridges by disabling the ink monitoring will ruin the print head. The ruined print head might ruin the logic board in the printer, making the printer a total loss.

 

[The Hat]

You’ve gotten the wrong printer for the job it was intended for in the first place and now you have two choices (1) would be to continue with this current printer (2) would be to buy a new laser printer.

Probably the reason why your Daughter got the 4850 was because it was much cheaper than a laser printer at that time ouch.

You can now get a laser printer but again if you get a cheap one you can expect higher running costs and not great reliability from it, on the other hand the more expensive laser printers will last for years and you can get high yield OEM laser or compatible cartridges for it and the use of toner save also, which would make more sense.

To continue to use your current inkjet printer more economically, set it to print in greyscale only then in fast mode and media type set to plain paper and it will use very little of the other colour cartridges, this would be your cheapest option, unfortunately eventually you going to have to replace the colour cartridges but not for a long time.

Refilling is also another option but that can be a steep learning curve to get it right but it would save you a lot of money on inks, another cheap option is to use 3rd party one time cartridges that you don’t need to refill at all.