Leave it on or turn it off ?

[The Hat]

Some guys swear by leaving their printer on 24/7 that is wastes far less ink on cleaning, but does it, how do you know. ?

The best way I found was to let the printer turn itself off but leave it plugged into the mains all of the time and that way the printer has the ability to keep track of time itself.

But if you power off and unplug the printer from the mains it will do a cleaning cycle every time you turn it back on again, it can do a small, medium or large flush, guess which, but if it can remember it usually only does a small flush to prime the heads for the next print job.

By fitting an external waste ink tank, like a printer potty, you can keep a good record of just how much and how often your printer wastes your ink, it really is the only way to know for certain, because you can visually see the ink been pumped into the waste tank.
It really is a proper ink monitoring system..

 

[William Seaward]

I'm really considering trying the printer potty. I was watching one of @jtoolman videos concerning using QImage, and how you can set it up to print an automatic nozzle check to beat the 60 hour timer that forces a purge cycle. Set the QImage timer to print on every 50 hours and it would use a lot less ink than the purge cycle. Using QImage will force you to leave your printer on all the time though.

 

[jtoolman]

Not a nozzle check. More like a purge sheet.
By the way watch my most recent video. I fired up the PRO after 3.5 days being idle.
Results.... Cleaning cycle!
Joe

 

[Slagathor]

I leave both mine on all the time, and I am considering a potty for the Pro 10, if Canon would just reset the counter for a nominal fee.
I would imagine the warranty will be long gone by that time. Anybody have an idea what they charge for that??

Ninja EDIT:

@The Hat Do you by chance have instructions for installing the potty on a Pro 10??

 

[The Hat]

@The Hat Do you by chance have instructions for installing the potty on a Pro 10??

Sorry @Slagathor, but I don’t, only the Pro 1 and 9500, I’ve not seen the Pro 10 up close yet..

 

[palombian]

Mine are - if available - on auto setoff.
Switch off the mains also if possible.
Never observed abnormal ink usage, and given the price of third party ink I prefer a healthy purge from time to time.

 

[jtoolman]

...and a "healthy" prematurely saturated waste ink pad!
Sorry, had to do say it!
Joe

 

[The Hat]

If you’re using 3rd party inks then why not let the printer do what is good for it, I turn my power off at the socket each night and am assured of a good healthy printer when I next turn it on again, but then I do use external waste ink tanks.

Potty trained...

 

[mikling]

Guys, it is not like the printer has a mind of its own. Its' mind is created by the engineers who designed the machine and it is located in the firmware. On the Pro9500, for which I have a service manual the schedule is listed there. I don't have one for the Pro-10 but I'm pretty sure it is similar but not exactly the same and it is spelled out clearly. The Pro-1 has it as well. You can see there are specific times and conditions and it is there for a reason. What I am not sure about is whether or not it has an onboard battery based clock. If not, then it is likely better to leave the printer plugged into the wall socket rather than a total disconnection.

 

[mikling]

You will also note that there is a set for an HB-A and an HB-B.

If you look closely and see which colors are contained in each set, and how much is used, you'll see that there is a different volume used depending on the color. This all makes sense because the colors that are purged more are the colors that contain more solids. So you can see the engineers are in fact not doing this willy nilly but for a reason and that is to prevent bad things from happening. Please do not circumvent the prescribed functions if you expect reliability. Colors that have more solids are likely to clog easier because when the pigment carrier dries, there is significantly more solids remaining to cause a clog.

Hat, I now wonder if the instance of your Pro-1 waste pad filling up quickly is somehow related to disconnecting printers at the mains each evening? Anybody have the source for the Pro-1 service manual? Wait, Hat you have one right?