Canon Ink Usage

Ebe_Scrooge

I've got a Canon Pixma IP4500. There's 5 ink cartridges - 3 colours and 2 blacks, one coded "BK" and the other coded "PGBK". I do a mixture of printing - pictures, photos and letters, and sometimes when I do letters I choose the "Print In Greyscale" option to save on the colour.

Now, the prints all come out fine, and I've used and replaced the cartridges many times, except the "BK" one, which doesn't seem to have been used at all - i.e. it's still showing as full. Is this right, or would it point to a problem ? And if anyone can tell me the difference between the two blacks and when they are supposed to get used, it would satisfy my curiosity :-) Many thanks.

fwor

I'd wondered this myself, as I have a similar Canon printer.

The first hit on Google came up with this:

PG is pigmented ink. The Cli-8BK ink is dye-based. Pigment for documents and plain paper. Cli-8 for photos and glossy paper. Pigmented ink doesn't set up well on coated papers (stays tacky and takes forever to dry), dye-based looks washed out when used for text.

Sounds fairly convincing.

Incidentally, I do a similar mix of text and photos, and my BK cartridge is going down, though at a much slower rate than the others - looks like I will need one BK for about every four of the others, but I guess if you print photos with lots of dark shadows you would use it quicker.

basmic

I think the bigger tank is used for greyscale printing - if you don't use that, I'd imagine it'd use the better quality black ink for documents, otherwise intended for photographs.

Ebe_Scrooge

Thanks for the replies - glad it's not just me !

spakkker

fwor has it right.

Bye the way, all these carts are very easy to re-fill by removing the plastic ball-bearing in the top - refill- put ball back. You do eventually lose ink monitoring! I have had ip5300 for two years on it's original carts.