PRINTER Canon PIXMA 600: 5 (!) Ink Cartridges.

Mary_Hartnell

Our kit was upgraded at Easter by the replacement of a trusty old refill-it-yourself HP 240 Series printer.
Now we have a Canon PIXMA MP600 scanner printer (and student daughter has the HP).

The PIXMA has no less than 5 cartridges. Reading from right to left there are the usual 3 for colours:- Cyan, Magenta & Yellow then a big fat Black one and finally on the left a thin Black cartridge that matches the coloured ones.

The black one recently "died" with a message "U150" :- "The following ink tank cannot be recognized." referring to the thin black tank. This message seemed to block any further use of the PIXMA. There still seemed to be ink in the cartridge.

Not wanting to introduce another variable into the problem, I had no choice but to rush out and get the official Canon CLI 8 - BK cartridge that cost over a tenner (About 800 GBP per litre:eek:).

Installing the cartridge "cured" the symptom. However the coloured cartridges showed as 3/4 1/2 3/4 full and the big Black PGI 5 BK was still 1/2 full.

Here is the question:-

Over 95% of the printing we do is perfectly usable in black & white, but I cannot find a setting to make this the default. The default is colour, even for black & white documents.
The nearest I can get to black & white to check "grayscale". Does this mean that the ink comes from the for rest of the Black PGI 5 BK cartridge or am I simply printing from the colour set of EXPENSIVE cartridges.
Is there a way of forcing the PIXMA MP600 to use the big black cartridge?

Mary.

Reggie_Rebel

I would have thought that individual carts are more cost effective than a tri-coloured one.

The printer will use the black cart if set to grayscale

Fifer

I have a Pixma and I much prefer the seperate cartridge setup. It means you don't throw away what's left of the other colours when the most used one runs out.

fwor

That error message means that the printer does not recognise the "chip" on the cartridge. Either the chip is faulty or the contacts have dirt/dust on them. If you remove and then reinstall the cartridge having checked the contacts are clean, it will probably work ok if the latter.

If the chip is faulty then I would try contacting Canon - in my experience their UK customer service is very good. Although I've not had the problem, I'd guess that they would probably replace it for you if you return it to them.

BTW - 7dayshop sell original CLI-8 carts for £6.79 each so you can get them a bit cheaper...

Mary_Hartnell

I tried cleaning the contacts: The cartridge lit up just like the others and then toddled off to into its cave on the right hand side of the machine, then it came back out again with its light turned off! It was only fitting the new cartridge that cured the problem.

Thanks for the "cheaper" source of ink (only about 550 GBP per litre?).

It may be worth returning the duff cartridge - suppose I might get a free one and Canon might realise there is a fault in their production system.

Thanks again,

Mary.

Mary_Hartnell

Anybody know how this printer decides which of its two black cartridges to use?
Before getting this fancy printer, I used to print coloured images in black and white if I did not need the colour. However it seems pretty obvious that the PIXMA MP600 knows when there is ANY colour on the image and switches to the really expensive slimline black/magenta/cyan/yellow 4 cartridges?

Is there any way I can force it to use the big PGI 5 BK tank?

Fifer

ISTR that the thin black cartridge is used for the black in colour images and photo printing and the big black one for text and monochrome printing.

I'm using aftermarket cartridges on my Pixma. It's slightly fiddly in that you have to remove the chip from the old Canon cartridge and stick it to the replacement with a (provided) double sided pad and you don't get any ink level indication, but they are massively cheaper and the colour rendition and quality is excellent, even with photos.

Fifer

With my Pixma (iP4200), under the 'Main' tab, there's a button marked 'Grayscale printing'. That should use only the big black cartridge.

thor

Smiley, i have an ip4300 which I think use the same carts as the 4200. Looking at stinkyink I see even the chipped carts are still quite expensive. Have you used non chipped compatibles and if so, is it worth paying the extra for the chipped versions?

Fifer

thor wrote: »

Have you used non chipped compatibles and if so, is it worth paying the extra for the chipped versions?

See post #7.

unrich

I know what you mean. We had a series of HP 930/950/970 printers that took the fantastic 42ml HP45 cartridge, £10 ish out of date from fleabay. It cost nothing to run.

We now have an MP810 and its £45 for a full set of carts!!!!!

Turn the quality to low.
Print in grey scale.
Buy carts from 7dayshop in bulk to cut down on the postage.

Buy a cheap laser printer where printing is abut 2-3p a sheet.

Or get one of your old printers off ebay and use that for day to day and the MP for quality photo printing.