Pro9000: Low ink warning not working for some colors.

[stratman]

because these conditions are not NORMAL

Interesting, Herr Doktor von Hat! The chip's "new cartridge full" reading plus an immediate optical sensor "empty" reading results in the optical sensor being overridden.

So, the optical sensor will not work at all - never - in this scenario?

One way to test this override scenario is to reset the chip and refill so that there is only ink in the sponged side (or non-reservoir side). This gives plenty of ink to print for a while without risking nozzle burnout. Or has this test already been done and he results are...?

 

[The Hat]

One way to test this override scenario is to reset the chip and refill so that there is only ink in the sponged side (or non-reservoir side). This gives plenty of ink to print for a while without risking nozzle burnout. Or has this test already been done and he results are...?

I have tried many times in many ways to circumvent or get around the ink warning system and failed each time, but if you put just enough ink into the reservoir say, ¼ full, reset the chip and print away with your ink monitoring showing a full cartridge.

When the reservoir empties, the prism signals no ink in the reservoir to the optical sensor, the low ink warning doesn’t pop up on schedule instead the printers reaction is slower, several pages later the printers monitoring drops to the yellow low ink warning in just one quick step.

When the non-chip BCl-6 carts were used it was possible to continue to top up your carts and you’d never receive a low ink warning, but the introduction of the chip stopped all that sadly...

 

[Artur5]

Thanks again for the insight and advices, guys.

For the record, I only installed briefly those empty cartridges to see what the ink status would be. I didn’t try to print anything with them and now I’ve put back the ‘normal’ carts and refilled those empty ones as well.

I was also under the impression that optical detection was a ‘safety belt’ for any kind of chip misadventures. Honestly, I never had trouble of this kind with my former Pro9000 during maybe 6-8 years.

Checking visually the 8 colors I saw that the status for all of them, but one, showed roughly the right amount of real ink remaining. The exception was the Cyan, barely one third full and showing ¾ on the status. Therefore I put a bit of ink on that cart (up to 75% aprox) to match the driver info.

From now of course I’ll be keeping an eye on the inks status vs the visual check and see what happens, because I still don’t have a clue why the yellow cart showed full after printing quite a lot, when it’s always the most used color along with photo magenta. Red cart is another story; it lasts for months.

 

[The Hat]

@Artur5, Your red and green carts will only get used if you continually print on high gloss using the maximum print setting, otherwise they stay dormant and only get used in cleaning cycles...

click to enlarge.

 

[stratman]

the low ink warning doesn’t pop up on schedule instead the printers reaction is slower, several pages later the printers monitoring drops to the yellow low ink warning in just one quick step.

That's what I recalled -- the monitoring system lags but still works.

I have tried many times in many ways to circumvent or get around the ink warning system and failed each time

Is this peculiar to the Pro9000? Also, did you carry on the testing long enough to see if the lagging ink monitoring you mentioned before would finally kick in? I would think a lack of ink for the nozzles would halt your testing, maybe before ink monitoring gave a low ink warning, so as to not ruin the print head.

 

[The Hat]

That's what I recalled -- the monitoring system lags but still works.

The ink monitoring only works if there’s enough ink in the reservoir to cover the prism, otherwise all bets are off...

I would think a lack of ink for the nozzles would halt your testing, maybe before ink monitoring gave a low ink warning, so as to not ruin the print head.

When I said the printers reacted slower to the sudden drop in ink levels, I meant it didn’t happen as you might expect it too under normal circumstances, but only minutes pasted before the printer brought its monitoring up to date, there was never a chance the print head was in danger, it’s the way all Canon ink systems work using the prism.

 

[Artur5]

@The Hat
While I understand what you’re saying about ‘abnormal’ conditions and why my tests with the empty black and green carts are not significant, that doesn’t explains why the optical monitor didn’t work at all with my yellow and red carts when the reservoirs went empty. These two carts were used normally: resseted, refilled, installed and printing several pages every other day. No stressing conditions, power failures or weird error messages.
I still think that there’s a fault somewhere in the optical monitoring system of the printer, affecting all colors.
As I intend to keep printing regularly for some days, I’ll keep you updated.

 

[Redbrickman]

Long Shot - Might be an intermittent fault in the main PCB.

 

[Artur5]

We all know that secondhand printers are a gamble. More often than not they come with a partially damaged printhead, worthless third party cartridges, etc.. This one seemed in perfect condition, came with a flawless printhead and 8 original Canon carts. As I paid for it half the cost of a new printhead, no complaints if I have to deal with some minor ( I hope) problems like this one. Nonetheless, I’d like to know exactly what’s going on. Time will tell.

 

[The Hat]

Long Shot - Might be an intermittent fault in the main PCB.

Ouch... if that is happening then it might explain the printers odd behaviour, and it would spell the end for the printer.

We all know that secondhand printers are a gamble. More often than not they come with a partially damaged printhead, worthless third party cartridges, etc.. This one seemed in perfect condition

Printer are funny things, their behaviour can be exemplary or very odd, they can last years or just go haywire after only 1 year, thankfully, I’ve never had a Canon lemon yet, only one Epson.

Can you run service mode on your printer and check its history by printing a EPROM sheet, this might give some insight into its oddness ?