How is ink level determined?

[Tin Ho]

Pretty close to how I would implement it, @Tin Ho . When you reset the chip it gets loaded with FULL. Each time you print with that cart you lower the volume. When the volume reaches EMPTY, you stop printing. The mirror mechanism is a fail safe that is used to indicate ALMOST_EMPTY at which point you set the volume to ALMOST_EMPTY and decrease it based on use until it hits EMPTY. Which is pretty much what you said. This is not a complex process.

If you use a resetter and refill each carts to as full as a new OEM cart is then you can treat your fully refilled carts like new OEM carts. The printer will not know the carts are refilled. But this is based on an assumption that the resetter does reset the chip to a state of true emptiness. I don't think anyone really know if the available resetter does that.

I don't use a resetter. I won't ever see any warning message from the printer. I can only rely on my gut feeling about my ink level. Once in a while I did run out of ink completely by surprise and my printer gradually showed a color missing. When I saw that I stopped printing immediately by lifting the lid of the printer. I refill the missing color as well as all other carts at the same time immediately. A cleaning cycle later the printer worked just fine again.

I am not encouraging anyone to not pay attention to actual ink level if not using a resetter. Just trying to say it is OK to not use a resetter. That's my experience from several printers that never used a resetter.

 

[Tin Ho]

The carts are open to the atmosphere and still subject to drying out from no use. Keep leaving printers with carts near empty and not using the printer and then you are looking for clogged heads when the carts dry out enough and the ink recedes back into the dried out cart.

All Canon carts will eventually dry out if left open to the air especially when they are near empty. Why? Much higher air volume to breathe and expand and contract due to pressure and temp fluctuations.

Think about it, the buffers in the serpentine help but do not eliminate this issue.

I once had a half bottle of refill ink that I wanted to discard. I poured it into a glass jar and let it sit in the bathroom for several weeks. The ink just did not want to dry up. Very weird. I eventually flushed it down the drain.

I don't know how fast the ink will dry up in the cartridge. I have always had my printers sitting (Canon and Epson) with carts in them. I just don't have a better way to store the printer. I did discover my Pro-100 lost all the ink in the cartridges after idling for 2 or more months. But I suspect that the ink was drained by the print head and the purge unit beneath it.

 

[The Hat]

I don't use a resetter. I won't ever see any warning message from the printer. I can only rely on my gut feeling about my ink level.
I am not encouraging anyone to not pay attention to actual ink level if not using a resetter. Just trying to say it is OK to not use a resetter. That's my experience from several printers that never used a resetter.

@Tin Ho, I don’t reckon you should be advocating the non-use of a resetter as a good way to use refilled OEM carts in their printers, you use this method but, it’s the wrong way from the start, the middle and the end. !

The proper way to use refilled OEM carts is in collaboration with the correct redsetter, there’s no if’s or buts about it, and that has always been this forums recommendation to all users, whether they be members or visitors.

You are a very experienced refiller and can get away without the use of a resetter, I’m also very experienced and I don’t know how you do it, but 99% of guys coming here are not very experienced and are looking to us to give them the best guidance in how to refill safely.

Some refill using the top method, some use the “Durchstich" method and others use the Freedom method, all these methods work and its purely down to a personal choice as to which one they favour, but that’s where personal choice ends if you truly want to run your printer safely.

It must be pointed out that running a Canon Pro 100 without ink monitoring in charge is just plain crazy, you have no protection whatsoever, all the other built-in sensors are disabled also, you are in fact flying blind the whole time you’re using your printer.

This method may have worked in the past with the older printers but the new models are far more sensitive and intelligent and will dump on you with a fatal error the first chance it gets, and one of these problems is already showing, (In your case) from the over use of the purge unit...

 

[palombian]

If you use a resetter and refill each carts to as full as a new OEM cart is then you can treat your fully refilled carts like new OEM carts. The printer will not know the carts are refilled. But this is based on an assumption that the resetter does reset the chip to a state of true emptiness. I don't think anyone really know if the available resetter does that.

...

In case you mean "reset the chip to a state of true fullness", I observed indeed with refilled OEM PGI-9 cartridges, that the resetted chip shows empty a few ml before, the originals leave less than 1 ml.
These chips have no prism, so the counting is done from the start.

I can live with this prudent approach, never saw a resetted chip warning too late (OK, only when I had the purge tube guided to a potty 40cm beneath ).

 

[apetitphoto]

The prism doesn't matter. It's a fail safe device.

 

[stratman]

Speaking of the Freedom Method of refilling, I just re-watched the excellent video by refillmanthhat2011 called
Canon PGI-9 cartridge Filling Made Easy. He makes the process seem very easy. (Did he say the weight of a new cartridge is 24 or 34 grams?)

Anyone know who this velvet voiced leading man of motion pictures printers is?

 

[palombian]

Speaking of the Freedom Method of refilling, I just re-watched the excellent video by refillmanthhat2011 called
Canon PGI-9 cartridge Filling Made Easy. He makes the process seem very easy. (Did he say the weight of a new cartridge is 24 or 34 grams?)

Anyone know who this velvet voiced leading man of motion pictures printers is?

The correct answer is 32 grams (without clip).

BTW I fill my carts by dripping, no syringes needed.

Maybe somewhere at Canon there is a writing on the wall: never ever again design a cartridge so easy to refill !
Strange enough it took years before it was found out (I bought my MX7600 end 2008 and it was 2011-2012 before it was reported).
In fact everyone could have bought the Lucia inks from their large format printers and reset 8 of the 10 colours with a CLI-8 resetter.

Probably "this velvet voiced leading man" was one of the first .

 

[The Hat]

Anyone know who this velvet voiced leading man of motion pictures printers is?

Redfaced...

 

[john kervin]

It's been ages since I was last here, to my surprise, my email had a message from this forum. Never seen that before.

The question of when the printer calls the cartridge empty.

The firmware counts every droplet of ink it squeezes out, whether through putting ink on the page, or into the waste ink pad through the "clean cycle" .
When a predetermined number of droplets has been expelled, the cartridge is regarded by the firmware as empty. On piezo printheads like the Epson, you don't want to suck air into the nozzles, it is one royal bitch to get rid of.
For that reason, Epson flags the cartridge as empty before you're sucking air. And it is always a good idea to have spare filled cartridges for an immediate swap out.

Most likely other similar systems do it the same way.

A printhead like the canons use -uses a heat to "expel the ink" and the resultant air in the printhead is not as big an issue for clearing.

All printers count the ink droplets, and when another pre determined number is reached, you're presented with the "service error" that the ink waste system is full and needs servicing.

Been a while

John

 

[stratman]

Redfaced...

The mystery man's other video, called IP4700, is a roller coaster ride of excitement.