PIXMA MP780 - Colors print very light after replacing ink cartridges

[ghwellsjr]

Your nozzle checks indicate that all your nozzles are working but the printouts are very light, especially if you had to enhance the color on the magnified portion of the grids for the cyan and magenta to the point where you can see the grain of the paper.

You indicated on your first post that all the colors had the problem of printing very faint and only the pigment 3eBk black would print dark. Now I see that the yellow and dye black are also printing dark. You also indicated that prior to this last change of ink cartridges, all the colors would eventually print normally but this last time, it took a lot of work but you have not achieved the same results.

We need to gather as many details as possible to figure out what is going on here so please answer all of these questions:

You indicated that you are now using Canon OEM cartridges but have you previously used any other brand?

If you have ever refilled any cartridges, what brand of ink did you use?

The last time you put in new cartridges, which colors did you change?

Prior to this last time, how long did it take and what did you do to get the colors to print dark?

Quite frankly, this is a new problem that I have never heard of before. Usually, when printouts are lighter than they should be, it's because a whole bank of nozzles aren't working but that is not what is happening here. You may have to get a new print head. Do you know anyone with a similar printer? This could be an iP4000 or an MP760 or MP780.

 

[trader_zane]

To answer your questions:
1. Yes, in the past I have used other brands of ink. I honestly can't remember what the brands were. I never refilled any of the cartridges, I bought off-brand cartridges already filled. I have used only Canon OEM cartridges for the last 1-2 years because work is reimbursing for the cost of cartridges.
2. I just changed ALL the cartridges this last time. It was one of those rare situations where they all ran out at the same time.
3. The last two times this happened, I don't remember the exact procedure of what I did to get it working. I should have written it down, but didn't. But what I clearly remember is that I did a ton of cleaning cycles and deep cleaning cycles. So many in fact that i felt like I lost a significant amount of the ink in the cartridges.
4. And no, I don't know of anyone with one of the printers you mentioned. I'm imagining a new print head is pretty expensive relative to the cost of a new printer. Do you have an idea in your head as to why, if it was the print head acting up, why this would happen when I replace cartridges?

One other piece of information that I might add is that at different times, I have used the Canon OEM 'photo' specific ink cartridges rather than the regular. Not that I needed them, that's just what work bought me. But with the knowledge I have, that doesn't seem like it would be a problem. I'm not at home right now to check, but I may have a 'photo' cartridge in right now. But I know for a fact that the empty ones I recently removed were not 'photo' cartridges (none of them).

 

[ghwellsjr]

One other piece of information that I might add is that at different times, I have used the Canon OEM 'photo' specific ink cartridges rather than the regular. Not that I needed them, that's just what work bought me. But with the knowledge I have, that doesn't seem like it would be a problem. I'm not at home right now to check, but I may have a 'photo' cartridge in right now. But I know for a fact that the empty ones I recently removed were not 'photo' cartridges (none of them).

I think you have hit on the problem. I'm sure you're going to find out that the photo cyan and photo magenta cartridges are in your printer. They are simply very light versions of the standard versions. So make sure you pick up a set of standard cartridges and put them in. You will need to do a cleaning cycle after you put them in to get the ink to flow through the print head and out the nozzles. The photo and standard versions of the cartridges are not interchangeable so don't let your work buy the photo cartridges again.

I'm going to guess that what happened in the past was you put in one or two photo cartridges, and then did a lot of deep cleaning cycles (they're called "Head Refreshing" on the printer's screen) which use up a lot of ink, until all the ink was gone, and then you put in a regular cartridge and everything worked fine.

 

[trader_zane]

I bought some more ink cartridges yesterday and put them in. Everything seems to be working just fine. Thanks for your help. Never occurred to me that a product Canon markets for my printer wouldn't actually work in my printer. Doesn't make sense that Canon would do that. But they did.

Thanks again for your help.

 

[ghwellsjr]

You're welcome and I'm glad we got this figured out.

The printers that use the photo cyan and photo magenta also use the regular cyan and regular magenta. In other words, all printers use the regular colors but some also use the photo versions in addition.

 

[pharmacist]

This is the reason why Canon stopped the production of the so-called photo magenta and photo cyan cartridges. So many people make the mistake of buying the photo magenta and the photo cyan cartridges for their "Photo" printer, when their printer only use the standard cyan and magenta cartridges and they discover that the printer is refusing the wrong CLI-8 cartridge....

The system of 3 different droplets for cyan and magenta (5, 3 and 1 picoliter) makes the usage of photo magenta and photo cyan obsolete and therefore the latest MP980/MP990 omit the formerly photo cyan and magenta cartridges and have them replaced with an extra grey cartridge. Six different cartridges with different names, so no confusion, no mistakes any more about the "photo" name in it.

 

[ghwellsjr]

This is the reason why Canon stopped the production of the so-called photo magenta and photo cyan cartridges.

I think you mean they have stopped designing new printers that use the photo cartridges; they will never stop producing the photo cartridges for existing and discontinued printers.

Personally, I never liked the idea of having photo cartridges that get used two to four times more than any other colors because they are so light and favored by the driver. I don't know why Canon had to make such heavy use of them. (Well, actually, I do.)

 

[pharmacist]

ghwellsjr,

yes you're right, that is what I mean. I think Epson is using the name Light Magenta instead of Photo Magenta, because the Photo associates with printing Photo's and most people think: Hey, I must buy this colour to print my "Photo"... Very confusing indeed. Here in Belgium on kapaza.be there are a lot of people reselling their mistakenly purchased CLI-8 photo magenta and CLI-8 photo cyan cartridges, trying to put them into their CMYKK-based Canonprinter, because they wanted to print "photo's".

 

[ghwellsjr]

I can see how it would be confusing. Also, many of the printers that use cartridges with built-in print heads provide an option to use a photo cartridge instead of the black cartridge (along with the standard color cartridge) to get better photos. Someone familiar with that type of printer could easily think that the photo cartridges were a similar option to get better photos in the kind of printer that the original poster had.