Printing Black But use Colours also Why..

[The Hat]

Heres the story

I printed a 1000 all black A4 leaflet the other day split 4 ways and ran them on four of my printers.
When I had finished I notice something strange with the ink monitoring.

Two of the printers used colour in the mix but the other two did not.

Now I would have taught like most that an all black text leaflet would have just
used the pigment black and not any colours but I was wrong.

You can clearly see the individual images of each printer below how they all ended up after the print run.

Looking at each printer I now know how this was done, its not a trick or a driver error problem.

The two printers that cant print duplex only used the single black ink where as
the other two namely the iP4500 and iP4700 which can print two-sided used all five colours.

 

[stratman]

Supposedly, the IP4500 uses pigment black during duplex printing on plain paper. What settings did you use for the print job?

Others have "hacked" the printer to get better looking blacks on plain paper duplex printing by using Hagaki paper in the media type option, setting the page size to custom 8.5x11 (in your case, A4), and setting the print quality to High resolution.

 

[The Hat]

Supposedly, the IP4500 uses pigment black during duplex printing on plain paper. What settings did you use for the print job?

Others have "hacked" the printer to get better looking blacks on plain paper duplex printing by using Hagaki paper in the media type option, setting the page size to custom 8.5x11 (in your case, A4), and setting the print quality to High resolution.

I used no special settings at all just print and go on plain paper and also input the quantity.
I never use high resolution for any of my text printing, I find it unnecessary and it just wastes ink.

 

[stratman]

Was there any difference in print quality? My post was more to this point despite you not mentioning it.

Has anyone determined if there is a difference in total ink consumption overall - is more ink in total used when mixing colors versus using just pigment black - and, is there a cost difference given that pigment black is more costly?

 

[ghwellsjr]

Were you printing your leaflets double sided using duplex printing on the two printers that permit it?

 

[The Hat]

Was there any difference in print quality? My post was more to this point despite you not mentioning it.

Has anyone determined if there is a difference in total ink consumption overall - is more ink in total used when mixing colors versus using just pigment black - and, is there a cost difference given that pigment black is more costly?

All the paper looked the same but some of them had very slightly darker text than others,
as far as cost is concerned I have no idea but I would imagine it wouldnt be any dearer.

Were you printing your leaflets double sided using duplex printing on the two printers that permit it?

The leaflets were printed single sided on all four printers the 4500 and the 4700 printed fastest..

 

[pharmacist]

My educated guess: IP4500 and especially the IP4700 are the latest models, so also an "optimized" firmware to enhance the razor-blade business model. The older the model, the less ink is spoiled into the waste ink diapers.

 

[stratman]

My educated guess: IP4500 and especially the IP4700 are the latest models, so also an "optimized" firmware to enhance the razor-blade business model. The older the model, the less ink is spoiled into the waste ink diapers.

Maybe so. But, we have no idea what the status of each cartridge was when The Hat began printing. Nor do we know about any scheduled maintenance purges that may have occurred with some but not all printers.

Possibly like ghwells, I took The Hat's original post to mean he was duplex printing. I took a bottle of Tullamore Dew to a friend who just had a hip replaced. Maybe The Hat was sharing a wee nip or two before he wrote his post.

 

[The Hat]

Listens guys I am as much surprised as you are the way this has turned out, (No drink Taken) you can clearly see
how much ink that still remains in the two printers that didnt use colour in the mix.

Even saying that I might have started my print run with half full cartridges that doesnt explain the why or the how
this occurs on only two of the printers manufactured over a ten year period.

All of the printers did stop to have a break and catch their breath before continuing on but no cleaning cycles that might suggest them
emptying the contents of the colour cartridges into the waste.

Stop and think about it and going back to the WHY question, if the printer was not using colour inks there would not be a need to dump
practically all of ink by purging if it wasnt using it in the first place, it wouldnt make any sense to do that.

I still cant figure out HOW the two printers managed to also use Photo black on the plain paper,
I always believed it was reserved for glossy paper only and duplex printing..

 

[stratman]

Are you sure your printers didn't get into the nectar of the gods?

My previous research on how the CLI-8/PGI-5 cartridges are used showed that PGI-5 is used when duplex printing on plain paper. However, I cannot recall if PGI-5 was said to be used exclusively. It may be that dye-based ink is used as well. Or, it could be that A4 paper selection causes dye-based ink to be used as well. Also, the format of what you printed dictates what ink will be used as well, for instance, if you were using a PDF file for printing then it would be treated as an image and dye-based ink would be used. What are the particulars of the file were you printing?