Wow, thanks. That is an eye opener for our tech support people.
Yes, you are right. Our techs never openned the bottom of the Canon printer
units.
Well, that pretty much tell us where all the ink went.
Is there anyway to stop the ink from leaking?
Should we remove the ink cartridges everything we stop printing?
The way canon manages the issue is it keeps track of everytime you
swap printheads, every time you clean the cartridge, every time you do
a borderless print and get "some" overspray. Even if you don't clean
the heads your self, the ip4000 is on a timmer where the big black, if
you don't print with in like 24 hours, it spews like a 1/14 a ml into
the diaper. Color you can ignore for 3 days but that too spews like
1/30ml into the diaper. This all adds up.
Canon isn't the "worst" nor the "best" in terms of waste.
On the ip4000 this value is 1700, but I don't know what this means in
terms of grams or ml, but obviously 1700 is an early warning before
overflow is an issue. But whatever the current fullness of the
printer is, you have an extra 120-150ml in the diaper that isn't on
the printers odometer.
The only resolution is to replace the diaper. You can find a i860
service manual to get instructions on how to do this. You can either
order new waste pads, or clean the existing pads. If you have a
support staff that can do this, great. Most cases the printer is
simply replaced, and the old one ends up at Goodwill.
On some printers, it's possible to fit an external waste tank. Epsons
for example use a pump to get the ink from the printhead to the waste
pad. It's trivial to take that tube and put it in a bottle. You will
still have extra ink from borderless printing, but in contrast this is
trivial. Epsons are more wasteful with ink. A Canon in contrast
assuming normal operation, can go years without the waste pad warning,
and even then you can often get away with ignoring the warning and
resetting the printer once.
You should NOT remove the cartridges on everything when you stop
printing, not unless you are willing to also take out the printhead,
cap it, bag it with a piece of wet paper towel, and store it. on the
ip4000 you lose .45g black and 1.5g color priming the head. This is
roughly equal to the automatic cleaning cycle on the ip4000 after you
don't print for 14-45 days, though only 1g of color is used. After 90
days black auto cleaning uses 1.58g. Color cleaning does not exceed
1g on the ip4000 unless you replace the head.
If this is a standard office environment where printing is daily
during the week, you only lose .14g/week directly into the pad, or
7.28g/year, and that's not using the printer on the weekends. This
could be higher if you skip days without printing, but this value will
not exceed 25.2g for black, that presumes you print once every two
days though out the year.
A greater loss would be printing only once every 2 weeks, where you
lose 16.2black and 26g color / year. AFAIK this is the highest rate
of waste ink, as the next step up is 45 days where .78g black and 1g
color are used per cleaning, where a max of 6.24g black and 8 g color
could be used.
You see where I'm going with this. Normal use results in some waste,
use only twice a month results in high waste, less than once a month
results in medium waste. 120-150ml , presuming 1g=1ml, we talking 3-5
years of medium to high waste, not measured on the odometer.
Waste ink is normal, and the printer gives more than adequate warning
when the waste tank is full. By the time it is full, under normal
conditions, you've enjoyed years of faithful service and have to ask
if you want to service the printer or replace it, or ignore the error
and you might be able to get away with it.
The printer needs its waste pad changed at this point, plus there is
the existing issue yearly waste daily. You need test equipment or
field replacements to troubleshoot the issue, and failure to
troubleshoot results in $15 of waste ink going to the diaper,
presuming you lose 20-25ml every 4 hours.
[mp530]
http://www.amazon.com/Canon-Pixma-O...?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1227317294&sr=8-1#
$100 shipped from Amazon.com
An all in one fax unit with the same text resolution and higher photo
resolution will be cheaper. CD printing optional.
[mp610]
http://www.amazon.com/Canon-Pixma-I...?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1227317342&sr=1-1#
$130 will get you an all in one unit that's only 17.7 inches wide,
card slots, larger print head, color LCD screen, and a whole ton of
features odds are you won't use. CD printing optional. This printer
is more quiet, and faster in most operations except 4x6 printing, and
cheaper to operate then the new ip4600.
[mx700]
http://estore.usa.canon.com/webapp/...ategory_rn=12054&top_category=12054&pageView=
$130 shipped from Canon. This is a beast but does sport network.
Color resolution would be on par with your current i860, as with
text. There is NO improvement with this model, except it's a good
deal larger and has a network jack and fax support. CD printing is
not an option.
[mp960]
http://estore.usa.canon.com/webapp/...n=12054&top_category=12054&pageView=&subCat=Y
This printer takes 7 cartridges and isn't really recommended if your
application is just text printing. Photo printing it offers an edge
over the the current ip4600, and well is only $100 shipped. It's a
referb, only a 3 month warranty, but at 1/3 the price many can live
with that.
Unless you are willing to service the printer, which might include
buying an extended warranty from Canon, paying for service by someone
who has a clue about canons, replacement is recommended.
