MP990 refurbished installed

[mrelmo]

ok i picked up the printer from the techs and they said the usage was normal and the cleaning cycles were normal, so i will print in fast mode unless doing photos, if someone knows how to get into the service mode i will see what the printed pages have been and post a pic of the cartridges for the amount of ink used, well i'll post a pic of the carts anyway and guess at the pages as they are under 30 total, pics coming later today

 

[inkadinkado]

A Canon tech told me recently that the MP990 cleans;

1. when you turn on the machine.
2. when you put in a new cartridge
3. when you run a cleaning cycle yourself
4. when you put the printhead in.
5. and, ever so often on it's own (which tells me there is a timer of sorts that automatically runs a cleaning)
Isn't this convenient for ink sales? Yeah ink refilling!!!!

I've read that just about anything you print, including your nozzle check will use 1/50th of the amount of ink that is dumped in the bottom of your printer if you let the printer do the auto cleaning cycle. And, I'm noticing that this seems to be true... that my printer dumps more ink on the cleaning cycle that I instigate rather than when it decides to do one. But, here is my strategy for minimizing ink dumping/cleaning and ink usage. Even though I'm refilling, I'm not going to go hog wild. It's just not why I'm doing all this.

1. Keep my printer on at all times.
2. Print somethng every day with just a bit of color to keep the nozzles wet and to keep the printer from doing one of it's automatic cleanings run
on the timer. Another option might be to run a nozzle check which may use less ink than cleanings. I don't know yet what the magic
number of hours the printer will let itself go without cleaning, but I plan to find out.
3. Do few if any borderless prints. Don't do many photos anyway.
4. Print all text documents that's possible on the fast speed mode, using better quality setting for the few high quality demands
5. Use plain paper setting even when using matte paper (as long as print quality holds up) ....matte paper setting uses more ink
6. When testing to see if larger prints look right, print a smaller version to test colors. Sometimes several versions have to be printed to get it to
my liking. Being an artist, I often provide my clients with prints of the art so this alone will save me a lot of ink.
7. And, to keep printing more seemlessly, keep refilled carts ready and waiting for when the printer runs out.

I do plan to clean printheads and carts when needed, but more as a scheduled maintenance effort.

I've recently purchased 30 carts over Ebay which I will flush, dry, and store most of, refilling an entire set of 6 to keep ready and waiting until needed.

This is close to all I want to be involved in refilling. I don't want a garage full of printers, although I wouldn't mind to have a few extra printheads.

 

[mikling]

There is one salient point that has been missed so far and could be semantics. However, do note that for the generation of printers AFTER the CLI-8s, each time you open the body cover or initiate a change cartridge instruction, the printer will proceed to reprime the printhead before printing. This will occur whether or not you actually change the cartridge or "just checking". You are invoking something that you do not like.

The question is why is this necessary? You will need to put on your thinking cap here and if you are missing one. well what can one do?

Why would one open the cover? ...for a regular user, to change the cartridge. What else? Normal users don't study the ink levels, they simply change when the printer tells them. Well, if a new cartridge is inserted, then what must the printer do? It must make sure that the ink is drawn down to the printhead nozzles.... Most would say this is cleaning. Well whatever you may wish to call it, the SINGLE pump to the printhead nozzle bank will draw down the ink to make sure the ink is brought to the nozzles. This is mandatory to preserve and make sure the printhead is well serviced with ink. If you think otherwise, then perhaps you don't understand how a printhead works and what it needs.

Now let's suppose you only wanted to check the ink level and see if it matches the indicator. Well for starters, the physical level in the tank and what the indicator says will likely not match. Canon accommodates some of the ink in the sponge as part of the ink level. This appears more so with the post CLI-8 carts. So you will likely see the ink level in the tank drop faster than the ink level indicator. ( Especially with the smaller carts)

As an aside, it could be that this aspect possibly nudged them more towards removing the window as possibly there were many complaints issues when people kept checking ink levels and saw that they didn't quite match and to make matters worse for themselves, each time they checked, they initiated another clean.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The desire to be ink sensitive, caused more ink wastage in the end.

What other reason would one open the cover? If there was a paper jam? this is very seldom. I can't think of any other reason really.

Now if the printer could remember that the same cartridge was inserted as was before and after the cover was opened and the user was "just checking", then the printer should forego the clean cycle as it was not necessary. What are the implications of this though? That would mean that the cartridge would have a unique ID. However, we want to be able to reset the cartridges and we can on the CL-221. If we reset, and the same ID is retained, then after resetting the printer would KNOW we are using the same cartridge but it doesn't. Thus I can infer that there is no unique ID on the chip, so the printer must rely on another aspect to determine if a cartridge has changed... the simplest is to record whether the cover has been opened or not.
Now let's suppose that Canon DID put an ID on the chip, then that would really mess up resetting as the printer would simply remember the last ID and then refuse cartridges that came back with the same ID and different level. We wouldn't want that would we?

Please remember that in engineering a printer, they give NO consideration to refillers but strictly for normal useage and that involves buying new cartridges.

We can be as critical as we wish to be about this but that is reality.

Also keep in mind that more nozzles and wider nozzle patterns means that EACH time ink is drawn to refresh the nozzles, more nozzles need to be refreshed AND this means more ink wastage. There is simply no way around this. Hard to understand? think about it this way. We have ten mouths that eventually get dry and parched, and we must occasionally quench those parched mouths. Now let's double the amount of mouths to twenty. We will need twice the amount of liquid to quench that thirst. If we have more people in a party, we need more drinks, simple enough?

So you see folks, it ain't always as clear as it might always appear to be. We want MORE nozzles and plenty of them for superior printing. We want faster print speeds. However, there is always a price to be paid somewhere. Guess where?

To make matters even more complicated and possibly hilarious. I explained to a customer why the ink levels are wonky on a BCI-6 machine when it is refilled before empty. To which he replied I WANT chips so that I can know what the ink levels are!!!!!!! Did you hear that right?

Heaven help us!

 

[inkadinkado]

Mikling
We will just never know as much as you do.

 

[The Hat]

mikling
I read through your thread with interest and all dough there are parts of it I could disagree with,
but I wont because its just too good.

There are lots of guys on complaining about the amount of cleaning their printer does
and want to know if this is normal in all new Canon printers.

This simple explanation is written in plain English that most guys can relate to,
it gives an insight into how and why their printer wastes (uses) ink to protect their expensive print heads.

It should relay most guys worries who taught they had just bought a lemon
and I would recommend it to be a sticky for more guys to read later..

 

[barfl2]

Mikling brilliant and so comphrensive post it surely covers all the Head Cleaning queries. For my part on my MP760 and HP7760 I never turn them off and I print at least 1 page daily. On these 2 Printers the cleaning cycles seem very moderate unlike the previous HP C5380 maybe because it is a more modern model using the smaller carts (like Canon) it seemed to drink ink and be very difficult to refill the opaque carts, which is why I have stuck to these older machines which I hope will keep going.

Once again thanks for all the information

barfl2

 

[websnail]

About the only thing I would say is that the types who are going to complain about their printer "not printing B&W when a colour cart is empty"... are unlikely to read something that long.. No reflection the post, just the reader