- Apr 19, 2005
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Have just refilled the CL5 CL8 cartridges on Canon iP4200 after ink low and ink out message was received and LED light on cartridges was flashing. Easy to refill, same as BCI-6 cartridges. Once reinstalled, LED ink low lights keep flashing and status monitor indicates low ink. The printer allowed three more pages to print before ink out warning came up and printer stopped. Cancelling print job and restarting brought up the low ink warning again and a further three pages of print before the ink out warning stopped the print job. After this hapened about fout times, a message came on screen saying correct ink level cannot be detected, click OK to resume printing. Then a message came up saying refilled cartridge is being used, do you want to keep printing. Click yes and then a message saying more or less that the ink count on the cartridge was being disabled and this was recorded in printers memory and Cannon would not be laiable for damage caused to printer. Click OK and print jobs resumed, LED light on cartridges extinguished.
It appears that from this stage on the printer cartridges can be refilled and the printer will print all jobs, but the low ink warning is disabled. This means the level of the inks in the cartridge will have to be carefully visually monitored as there is no means for the printer to detect a cartridge running dry ans stopping the print job before damage is caused to the printheads. It also appears to mean that Canon can detect that refilled cartridges can be used and which may void any warranty work on the printer.
So you can refill these cartridges but it means that the low ink warning is disabled and Canon will know this if any warranty work is required - so user beware. However, the CL5 CL8 cartridges seem to have less ink in them than the BCI-6 cartridges, about 6ml less for the colours and they cost an exorbitant Australian $27 each, A$135 for a replacement set for the iP4200. After two lots of reflling the cartridges as compared with buying two sets of Canon cartridges, you would be way ahead, even if you had to throw the printer away and buy a new one!!!
This could bring up some interesting legal questions, especially in the US, since the use of OEM only supplies cannot be mandated by the manufacturer. Nor can usage of third party supplies be used as the basis for denial of service unless the failure can be directly attributable to the supplies.
I'm curious about the chipped cartridge. What would happen if the cartridge is topped off prior to getting the low ink warning? Would it still detect a low ink situation based upon droplet count or is the LED/prism still used? What would happen if one of the contacts on the cartridge was damaged (or disabled by a piece of tape) - would it give an error message and not allow printing, or would printing continue on without benefit of the chip?
http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=515
1. Less ink in the carts.
2. Can refill but it does not measure the ink level of 3rd party ink.
3. Warns that you just voided your warranty.
4. No 3rd party carts yet.
5. Models: Canon Pixma iP4200, iP5200, iP6600D, Canon Pixma MP450, MP500, MP800