MP780 wasting colored ink......

[fotofreek]

Doctodd - Providing there is nothing wrong with the printer, you will be able to stop being concerned about ink usage by either refilling or buying prefilled carts.

My wife previously had a Canon BCJ3000 that we set to grayscale and let the color carts run dry. She was quite happy with that as she only prints web pages and emails. I recently bought her an ip5000 on a closeout to encourage her to start printing photos (to no avail!) I now refill her carts with bulk MIS inks and leave the printer set on "plain paper." The web pages do print in color, much more pleasing to the eye, and I could care less how much ink we use as it costs 10% or less compared to OEM Canon inks.

My refilling has become very efficient with the use of squeeze bottles from Howard Electronics that have a luerlock fitting on the cap that accepts a hypodermic syringe needle. One of the participants on this Forum very kindly told us about these items. In addition, I fitted all of my refill carts with the screw/o-ring seal, and that has also speeded up the process.

If you don't want to refill them yourself, buy inexpensive compatable prefilled BCI-6 carts. Although I haven't seen any reports on the new brands of carts carried by Alotofthings, a call to the owner to ask him which carts have had the least comoplaints would certainly be in order. Their customer service is reputed to be quite good and I'm sure he would give you a straight answer. If the Procolor carts have proven to be trouble free, and if they can confirm that they have Formulabs ink in them, That would be my choice. Don' worry about the ink usage - just reduce the cost!

 

[Squeaky0323]

Hi,
I have a PIXMA MP780 and my machine is doing exactly the same thing. I have contacted Canon and they tell me that I have been printing in grayscale, which I haven't. They say printing in grayscale uses the color ink. Then, they told me that I was using the wrong type of paper. Well, I'm using inkjet paper. They didn't have a comeback on that one. Then, they said my settings were wrong. I told them I was on plain paper, standard print and they said that I would use black ink but my black ink tank is still full and all my color is gone.
Even the LCD readout shows, black empty (BCI-3e) and all the others full but when I check them, the black is FULL and all the others are empty. Just the opposite of what the readout shows. And, the BCI-6 ink is supposed to be used for photo printing only but the Canon tech said that the colors won't mix right if it isn't placed in there for just plain printing....so that is telling me that even that black ink is used when just printing in black text.
And, when I replace a cartridge, the LCD readout indicator doesn't change. How do you reset it? It should reset itself. At least, the other printers I have had reset themselves when the ink was replaced.
I told Canon for the price of this thing, it should operate A WHOLE LOT BETTER. They just told me the I was doing something wrong. Well, I've done EVERYTHING they have told me to do and nothing works. I am still using all the color ink and no black ink.
If anyone can help, PLEASE......

 

[d86cfv]

Right, Grayscale:

When you select grayscale on your 780 you are not using your coloured ink (perhaps with the exception of if you have it set to photo paper), You can tell that your not because if you print off a web page in colour it will be VERY slow compared to printing in GS which will spit the page out as if it were just a page of normal text. If you have taken the time to look at the underside of your printhead you will see why - the nozzel plate for the black is 3 times the size of the one for the colour which makes black printing much quicker. If GS mode used colour then it would be dog slow too, or of the same speed as printing in full colour, even slower because the text portions would be made with the colour too.
Under normal use, if you print off a composite doccument (graphis & text) the text is done with the Bci3ebk and the colours are done with the rest. If there is no colour on the page then no colour should be used, you shouldnt have to even select GS.

You can test my theory by printing a web page with graphics in colour and GS and see that GS is about 5 times faster, it wouldnt be possible to be this fast if it were using the colour head.

With regards to the ink being used during printhead cleans as i myself mentioned in a previous post i would have thought that by now if this was the case then the waste ink tank would be full so i would doubt this is happening, but you never know.


Regs,

Dan

 

[doctodd]

I dont think the problem is grayscale because my unit did the same thing even after i followed their advice. I have 2 other MP780's(dad's and work) and they both work fine. An update on my problem MP780....the large black cartridge works fine and isnt used up too quick. The colors and small black however are used up for no reason. It's ok though cuz they sent me a refurbished unit. Will be sending back the bad unit soon.

T