Odd problem with ip4000 and greyscale

[Andrew]

Hey, I've got an ip4000 that I've had for just a few weeks, after a few pages printed in colour, I set it to greyscale, duplex and leaving all of the other settings to default (in win98). Now we've printed a number of pages of text in Netscape and Word (only in greyscale) since then, but for some reason it has been using up the cyan ink. I have already had to refill the 3eBK ink cartridge (was my first time refilling too), but it is rather curious why it has been using up the cyan ink.

 

[fotofreek]

I don't know why it would use Cyan more than the other colors in grayscale, but all of the inkjet printers run cleaning cycles at intervals dictated by the onboard printer controller and all ink cartridges "contribute" some ink to that process. Perhaps the pictures you printed in color had a lot of blue and green areas that used a lot of the Cyan before you switched to text printing.

On the ip4000 you need to set the paper selection to plain paper in order to use, primarily, the 3eBK ink. I don't have this printer, but from what I've read, plain paper text printing uses that ink exclusively. You will still lose some of each color ink from the cleaning cycles. This keeps the print head from clogging and is desirable. Especially with refilling, the cost of the lost ink is negligable. Just be sure you have selected bulk inks from recommendations on this and other forums and not used "universal" inks. MIS and Formulabs seem to be the preferred bulk inks on this forum and I've seen Hobbicolors recommended but have not yet used it.

 

[panos]

Andrew -- one question: were you printing PDF documents?

 

[Andrew]

Could it perhaps have used some cyan ink (and a little bit of the other colours) when the 3ebk cartridge was basically empty? We didn't print that many colour pages (maybe 10-20 and these were websites, not large pictures), but I do remember them having a reasonable amount of blue/green. And the rest may have been used up through a few cleaning cycles. I've taken the (empty) cyan ink out and it still seems to be printing fine (greyscale in word).

I have been using Inktec ink, as that is what is available locally, we haven't been printing any pdfs.

 

[fotofreek]

Damage can/will occur when carts are left out or run dry and you continue to use the printer. For certain, the print head ink intake where there is no cart will dry up and require cleaning beyond the cleaning cycles that one does through the CAnon software. refill with good bulk ink or put some inexpensive prefilled carts in - alotofthings, inkgrabbers, etc - to preserve your option to print colored photos/graphics when you want to, even if your primary use is black text. You won't be out that much money and will preserve your print head.

 

[panos]

I remember that when I was printing large volumes of books early in the summer, cyan ink was used as well. Possibly, Canon is using cyan in B/W prints to smooth edges. I thought it was a quirk in PDF documents printing but I now I think it's a useful technique.

 

[ghwellsjr]

When printing booklets or any other duplex printing, Canon reduces the intensity of the pigment black ink and adds both cyan and magenta dye inks. Don't ask me why.

See my post for a complete explanation:

http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=1275

 

[Fenrir Enterprises]

I mentioned this elsewhere and it was confirmed by someone else who had a response from Canon, it produces bad quality with the duplexer in order to prevent show-through.

In my experience, people have a tendency to buy the cheapest paper possible for everyday printing, which is usually 20 lb / 70% opaque / 88 bright, which will have terrible show through even if you use medium grey text. Canon probably forced the printer to do this to avoid complaints that double sided printing shows through too much.

 

[ghwellsjr]

In my experience, people have a tendency to buy the cheapest paper possible for everyday printing, which is usually 20 lb / 70% opaque / 88 bright, which will have terrible show through even if you use medium grey text. Canon probably forced the printer to do this to avoid complaints that double sided printing shows through too much.

But Canon is not forcing medium grey with duplex printing. The black looks just as black as single-sided printing. It's just that it is made up of 50% black pigment ink, 25% cyan dye ink, and 25% magenta dye ink. If you have a pigment black ink that does not run when it gets wet on single-sided printing, it will run on duplex printing because now it is half dye ink.

I always thought the non-water based pigment black ink had less of a tendency to bleed through paper than water-based dye black ink, so I don't understand how mixing water with the black pigment ink when doing duplex printing makes for a better printout.

 

[Fenrir Enterprises]

Hmm, most people who I've heard mention the problem comment that the text on the back is 'light' or 'faded'. I can't remember if you are using refill or OEM inks, but if you're using refills, maybe the change doesn't lighten it as much as if you were using OEM ink.