Replacing my Canon printer

[FryingSaucer]

In between this monthly job my printing is minimal so when finished the ip4500 has a rest for 3 weeks or so, and the ip4600 (because it has a bottom cartridge feed so is neater to have sitting with the rear paper feed tray shut) is used to do the occasional invoice print or address label etc. I then refill before I start my main job again 3 or so weeks later.

You leave the iP4500 for three weeks? That's interesting. What I'm considering doing at the moment is buying a B/W laser printer for the majority of my printing which does not need to be colour. My wife has an HP printer I could use for the odd colour print, but the quality is poor. If I can get my existing iP4600 print head unblocked, I will have a decent colour printer available when I need it.

What worried me about this was only occasionally using my iP4600 when I want to print colour, but I had decided there was no way I could use my iP4600 in this manner. Do components not dry out, or at least does the printer not spend all its time and ink recleaning when when you switch it on again after three weeks?

 

[The Hat]

DomtheMon..

Yes by 'defined number of passes' I do mean that I do a set run (35 on ip4600 and 40 on ip4500) then top all the carts up (except any that are over 80-90% full still). I should say that I am doing a long (to me it is long but to others it wouldn't be!) run of 500 once every month, so am sitting near the printers doing the run of 500 full colour passes. So I print the 35/40, refill, set it off again etc etc.

I used refill my cartridges after printing about 30 pages on long print runs but found I had to be there when the printer was running. Now I have a CISS and can leave the printer for over an hour, returning only to empty, refill the paper..


FryingSaucer..

What worried me about this was only occasionally using my iP4600 when I want to print colour, but I had decided there was no way I could use my iP4600 in this manner. Do components not dry out, or at least does the printer not spend all its time and ink recleaning when when you switch it on again after three weeks?

Thats where good quality or oem ink comes into play. A gap of three weeks idle is nothing to a printer with good ink and oem cartridges in it. So your 4600 will cope if you give it the conditions it requires. Simples..

 

[FryingSaucer]

Thats where good quality or oem ink comes into play. A gap of three weeks idle is nothing to a printer with good ink and oem cartridges in it. So your 4600 will cope if you give it the conditions it requires. Simples..

Thanks. That's reassuring to know.

Also, how does the iP4600 know whether a cleaning cycle is required when you switch on? Does it monitor elapsed time since it was last used, or is it somehow able to check the state of the nozzles? I'm interested because if I use the printer infrequently it may use a lot of ink if it does a long cleaning cycle each time I switch on.

 

[The Hat]

FryingSaucer..

No it doesnt check for elapsed time, it checks the nozzles for ink then it is ready to print. As far as I know the amount of ink it uses is very little on a start-up cycle. The printer will only use more ink if you decided yourself to do a deep cleaning cycle..

 

[FryingSaucer]

FryingSaucer..

No it doesnt check for elapsed time, it checks the nozzles for ink then it is ready to print. As far as I know the amount of ink it uses is very little on a start-up cycle. The printer will only use more ink if you decided yourself to do a deep cleaning cycle..

Maybe not at start-up, then, but one of the most annoying features of the iP4600 is that at any point it can decide it wants to run a cleaning cycle. You may be rushing to print off a one page document when the printer decides to go into a cleaning cyle for about an hour (well, perhaps about 1 to 2 minutes, but it seems like an hour if you're late for a meeting)

However, this may be much less of a problem if you're not using compatible cartridges as I was.

 

[The Hat]

FryingSaucer..

However, this may be much less of a problem if you're not using compatible cartridges as I was.

It could be that compatibles are more wasteful with their ink and need more cleaning.
You could try turning on the printer before you start your document, that way it would be waiting on you for a change..

 

[ghwellsjr]

From post #20:

I think my method is easy. What worries me about refilling through the sponge is how do you know how much ink to inject? As the new cartridges have a clear tank of ink that supplies the sponge then to me it is the logical way to do it, you are simply topping up the reservoir. This then feeds the sponge.

With the German method you can safely refill the reservoir all the way to the top. Since the cartridge is upside-down, no ink goes into the sponge. When you turn it right side up, ink will flow into the lower sponge and not into the upper sponge (assuming you are using Canon original cartridges--most compatibles have only one sponge). After a minute or so, you can turn over the cartridge and top it off one more time.

With the traditional top filling method that you prefer, ink will saturate both sponges all the way to the top if you fill the reservoir to the top, unless you have a special procedure to prevent this from happening. Some people fill the reservoir have way then cover the air vent with tape then continue filling the reservoir. But most people aren't even aware that this is an issue. The problem is that during normal use, the upper sponge is designed to allow air flow from the air vent down to the groves that start have way down the wall between the sponge compartment and the reservoir and into the hole at the bottom of that wall to replace the ink that has come out of the reservoir.

 

[DomtheMon]

No idea re the upper sponge business, but all I can say is I have refilled my (Canon original) cartridges over 100 times without requiring flushing.

 

[ghwellsjr]

You indicated that when you refill from the top, you wear a rubber glove and hold the bottom outlet port. Don't you also cover the air vent on the top at the same time while you are doing this?

 

[DomtheMon]

I used refill my cartridges after printing about 30 pages on long print runs but found I had to be there when the printer was running. Now I have a CISS and can leave the printer for over an hour, returning only to empty, refill the paper..

Having had occasional problems with one or other of the printers suddenly having problems with one of the nozzles (despite plenty of ink in the tank) and therefore wasting several sheets of double sided matt card, I prefer to keep an eye on the print run. If I came back to find 50 sheets all misprinted I'd cry! Also it doesn't do much good to the printhead running it with no ink reaching the jet.

It is rare, but it happens. I don't think it would make any difference if I used a CISS, nozzles can still clog without warning.