refilling Canon MP 610

[qwertydude]

The only reason now for the optical sensor is if your ink leaks out by accident, then the chip will send a low ink message to the printer and it will read low ink and out of ink after the printer determines you've gone through the amount of ink in the foam. Also if for some reason you've been using ink faster than canon's algorithms. But yeah the optical system is pretty much useless, it's why I just disable ink monitoring and manually monitor ink levels. I wish we still had unchipped carts where the printer uses the optical sensor to tell you you're out of ink and it's time to refill.

 

[headphonesman]

I think the reason the chipped cart still has the prism is that it was cheaper to leave in rather than redesign it out and perhaps it can be resurrected sometime by Canon if needed , i.e a move away from the chip.

I for one will continue to believe it is not to be trusted and will continue to manually monitor the levels of ink in my carts.

 

[pharmacist]

There must be reasons why the optical sensor is still present. As I said it is the last line of defense for the print head. The chip already has the protection against the possibility of frying the print head (printing with an empty ink cartridge). But if an ink cartridge lost a lot of ink because of too many cleaning cycles or if the chip somehow gets written with a bad data the chip may tell the printer that there is still some ink while it is actually empty. This is when the last line of defense is there to prevent the printer from printing. It is probably very rarely kicked in so nobody ever saw it actually doing its job.

I have not seen it doing its job either. So I too stand to be corrected if anyone actually saw it working (or not). I wonder why it is still present if it no longer functions. The optical sensor may cost a little extra to the overall cost of the printer only but it will add up and it is not wise to waste it if it is there for no functionality.

Your theory can be true, as for the Canon CLI-221/521/821 and the PGI-220/520/820 cartridges the prism is still there, so it must have some purpose. Canon could redesign the cartridges again to omit the prims, because these new printers have a new design. But no: the prism is still there...

 

[ghwellsjr]

There are two ways to settle this issue:

1) Some one can do the experiment headphonesman started in post #7 except actually try to print something. Maybe even a nozzle check would be sufficient. If you're worried about compromising your printer, refill just the sponge part of the cartridge before doing this.

2) Start with a new Canon cartridge or one that has at least half the ink left in the reservoir. Use the German method to drain the ink from the reservoir by holding the cartridge in its normal position and forcing air into the reservoir. Be prepared for ink coming out of the outlet port.

Then after doing either of these processes, put the cartridge back in the printer and first see if the level sensor has not changed, then print a nozzle check followed by a page of whatever. See if the printer reports a drop in the ink level.

Now I have another question: is the optical sensor still present in these printers? It is located on the left side of the inside of the printer and looks like a small block with two tiny optical devices on it.