Cartridge Chip

[duncan22]

Can someone give me detailed information about what the cartridge chip does (In my case Canon 610 Printer)
For example does it register the cartridge needs refilling after x number of operations or does it record the amount of ink used by that particular cartridge each time it is used ?

 

[mikling]

It performs two tasks. It has an ID that tells the printer that this chip is supposed to be on a e.g. Yellow cartridge. that way, if the cartridge is put in the wrong position the printer will know that it is the wrong position and produce an error warning.

The second function is that it an ink level ESTIMATOR. It is not directly or physically connected or monitors the actual ink levels in any way shape or form. It does not haves sensors. If you took a chip from a new cartridge and placed it on a cartridge that was empty and put it inside the printer. You will find that the printer thinks that it has a new full cartridge whereas we know it does not. When a chip is full it has a certain count maintained within the memory of the chip. As it is being used, the printer in addition to sending signals to the printhead to print also send instructions to reduce the count on the chip. That is how the ink level is monitored. The theory is that as the ink is used and the count reduced, we will know the ink levels on the cartridge.
Even when you do not print but perform a head cleaning, it simply reduces the count by a certain amount depending on the printer programming and model.

Just remember it is NOT a sensor of the ink level, just really a scratch pad used for estimating which can be disabled if desired and the chip, depending on model, may be resettable to full status upon refilling.

 

[duncan22]

Thanks for that !
90% of the time I use the printer for Photos & Disk Labels so the colour carts get a lot of usage, I guess the CLI-8 cartridge is used more for letters & documents. The message which appears about the colour carts needing to be refilled has been fairly accurate but the CLI-8 was still 30% full of ink when the refill message came up.
Your description of what is going on explains why this happened.

 

[ghwellsjr]

When you say CLI-8, don't you mean PGI-5?

 

[duncan22]

When you say CLI-8, don't you mean PGI-5?

Yes I did mean PGI-5... sorry about that.

 

[ghwellsjr]

Hint: when you want to quote a post, hit the Quote link in the bottom right corner of the post.
But there is really no need to quote a post immediately before yours. We can assume that you are responding to the one just above yours.