Pixma iP4300 As A Dedicated Black and White Printer

[Parker G. Kramer]

As one who primarily does printing in black and white, is it possible to
make the Canon Pixma iP 4300 a dedicated black and white printer by
replacing the 3 color cartridges with black ones? The owners manual
notes that if the wrong cartridges are installed the printer will not
print. Is there a way to work around this?

Thanks,
Parker

 

[Burt]

As one who primarily does printing in black and white, is it possible to
make the Canon Pixma iP 4300 a dedicated black and white printer by
replacing the 3 color cartridges with black ones? The owners manual notes
that if the wrong cartridges are installed the printer will not print. Is
there a way to work around this?

Thanks,
Parker

There are relatively inexpensive Epson printers that have just what you
want. MIS inks, among others, are available to replace the Epson color
carts with shades of gray so you can do good quality black and white prints.
As I recall, there are inks that are warmer in tone and others colder in
tone. There are HP printers that have gray scale carts in addition to the
color carts. I don't know how many of the gray scale carts they have as I
don't know much about the HP printers. I don't know of comparable products
for the Canon printers.

The inks available for the iP4300 may or may not give you neutral grays.
Look up the Neil Slade information on inkjets. He has evaluated several ink
sets for previous Canon printers that use the bci-6 carts. His conclusion
was that the Canon OEM inks gave the most neutral gray scale of all he
tested. He also felt that some of the others could be "tweaked" to minimize
any color hue. I use MIS inks to refill my carts in an i960 and and ip5000.
On the i960 the best black and white prints are produced by not using the
gray scale setting. I have printed very neutral B&W prints on the iP5000.
I don't recall if I set the printer to gray scale or not. I did them
several months ago for a special occasion and was quite please with the
results. If you already own the printer you should experiment with various
settings. It will also depend on which software you are using from which to
print. If you use the Canon easy print software, it takes over and
precludes your making any adjustments.

Go onto the Nifty-stuff forum, sign in, and ask the question there as well
as someone may have the info you need. At the top of the forum page is the
link for neil slade. Check out his "ink shootout." It has grayscale
scans of the various inks for the bci-6 inks printed on an i960 printer.
You may be able to apply some of this info in your search for a suitable ink
for B&W prints on the iP4300.

http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/

 

[Bob Headrick]

As one who primarily does printing in black and white, is it possible to
make the Canon Pixma iP 4300 a dedicated black and white printer by
replacing the 3 color cartridges with black ones? The owners manual notes
that if the wrong cartridges are installed the printer will not print. Is
there a way to work around this?

No practical way. If you only want to do B&WE (with a rare color page) you
would probably be better off with a low cost laser printer. You might also
look at the HP DeskJet's - most of the new versions allow printing with just
a black cartridge installed, leaving the color cartridge slot empty.

Regards,
Bob Headrick, MS MVP Printing/Imaging

 

[Burt]

No practical way. If you only want to do B&WE (with a rare color page)
you would probably be better off with a low cost laser printer. You might
also look at the HP DeskJet's - most of the new versions allow printing
with just a black cartridge installed, leaving the color cartridge slot
empty.

Regards,
Bob Headrick, MS MVP Printing/Imaging

Bob - I don't know the HP models, but I do recall a model fairly recently
that had a cart or carts specifically for black and white printing in
addition to the color carts. If the OP is looking to do good quality, full
gray scale B&W photo prints I haven't seen a laser printer that would do
such a thing. On the other hand, the HP printer that was set up to do color
and good quality B&W Photo prints might be a good solution. I haven't used
the Epson printers for which the aftermarket black/gray scale ink sets are
available, but that really sounds like the best approach if someone wants to
do B&W photo prints on an inkjet. I know that MIS has these inks, and there
is a manufacturer/vendor that specializes in inks for the art community that
also has B&W inksets.

 

[measekite]

Why even ask that question. Just buy an inexpensive BX Laser printer.

 

[titan]

Hi IP4300 users,

I work on CD and DVD printing. I have been working sucessfully with
Canon ip5000, but is not available anymore. Maybe I will change to the
Canon IP4300, but this model works with the inks CLI, instead of the
BCI, used before.

The issue is that I bought some quarters of the ink BCI to work with
CISS on my IP5000 printers, and I want to know if I can work with the
ink BCI indistinctly on the printer IP4300 and on the printer IP5000,
or if the new CLI ink is very different from the old BCI, and if I
MUST buy the ink CLI in quarters to work with the IP4300.

I hope somebody's help !!