I have a Canon i860 printer that has 5 ink tanks. Three color and two
black. The larger of the blacks is the 3e. The printer never uses
any ink out of the 3e. It's just full all the time. Do I have
something set wrong that causes all black printing to come out of the
smaller 6 tank?

The BCI-3ebk is only used in plain paper mode. If you are printing with any
of the other paper types specified, then it's understandable why you don't
see any usage of the pigmented ink tank.
--
Ron

"Dick" <LeadWinger> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>I have a Canon i860 printer that has 5 ink tanks. Three color and two
> black. The larger of the blacks is the 3e. The printer never uses
> any ink out of the 3e. It's just full all the time. Do I have
> something set wrong that causes all black printing to come out of the
> smaller 6 tank?

It is set to plain paper mode.

On Sun, 15 Jan 2006 22:40:29 GMT, "drc023"
<d+r+c+0+2+(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>The BCI-3ebk is only used in plain paper mode. If you are printing with any
>of the other paper types specified, then it's understandable why you don't
>see any usage of the pigmented ink tank.

> It is set to plain paper mode.

Canon logic is a mystery to me. I have observed at times I don't use
my 3e when printing documents when I have batches of color text with
color blocks.

Also duplex mode uses less 3e than regular mode.