Canon i860 printer 3e ink empty in few hours

  • Thread starter Thread starter Amy Moore
  • Start date Start date
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?
Click to expand...

Arthur bought up the subject of models that can route ink to a jar.
This is likely less desirable in an office environment since that jar
can spill.

What makes sense to reduce waste is

1) Laser
Lasers by their very nature go much longer and faster without service
than inkjets. There are some models that you have to replace parts
over 10,000 to 30,000+ pages that can actually be done by the end
user. These tend to take more basic cartridges and cost very little
per page to operate. Most lasers these days recycle their waste
toner.

2) Professional inkjets
1 network inkjet used by the staff is far more likely to enjoy
continuous use and not waste the ink into the pads. HP has quote a
few "business jet" models where the cartridges are double the cost of
canon, but offer triple the yield. These guys have heads that you can
replace, and actually they enjoy a longer service life than canon.
Prices of these units tend to be twice to three times a base canon
model. The advantage is you don't have to much with it so much. The
disadvantage photo printing tends to be really good on $100-$150
inkjet models.
 
"IntergalacticExpandingPanda" <[email protected]>
wrote in message
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.
Click to expand...

Well, thank you for all your suggestions.
We found most of the printers in each office floors are not used frequently
at all.
In typical case, these color printers are used, say two or three times a
month to print color charts for meetings. Most printing are black/white
re-directed to the main laser printers. For now, we just remove the 3e black
cartridges. Yes, its is drying out. Any suggestion for our office staff to
deal with this?
Thank you.
 
Well, thank you for all your suggestions.
We found most of the printers in each office floors are not used frequently
at all.
In typical case, these color printers are used, say two or three times a
month to print color charts for meetings. Most printing are black/white
re-directed to the main laser printers. For now, we just remove the 3e black
cartridges. Yes, its is drying out. Any suggestion for our office staff to
deal with this?
Thank you.
Click to expand...

Removing the 3e black is the wrong thing to do. A cartridge is like
$12-$15. A printhead is $50 to $80. The HIGHEST waste you should
experience is 1 cartridge per year, actually 1/2 cartridge IIRC. Even
taking color into account, that's equal to 1/2 a black ($6-$7) and 2
colors ($20-$26). This is still less than the value of a print
head.

That's powering up the printer once every two weeks, and not using it
at all in between. Using it more, or less, and the printer will not
waste as much ink, or rather it will waste a similar amount less
often.

[how much are you printing]
(1) Turn off the printer.
(2) Press and hold the RESUME button, then press and hold the POWER
button.
(3) Release the RESUME button, Next press and release the RESUME
button two(2) more times in succession. Note: you are still holding
the POWER button). The printer's carriage will "reset" or move
momentarily. If the above was properly performed the printer will
enter the "Service Mode".
(4) Press the RESUME button 1 time, then press power. The printer
will spew out a diagnostic page siting how many pages the unit has
printed on various papers.
(5) Press POWER to resume normal operation.

This will give you an accounting of how many pages printed on each
type of paper. It's a tad cryptic though. You might consider a
service manual to decipher it, but IIRC it does say page count all
followed by a number of to letter acronyms=#### where each means
something, like HR for high resolution paper, GP for glossy paper,
that sort of thing.

----------
If the printers are not used frequently, I would have fewer
printers.
[mp700]
http://www.buy.com/prod/canon-pixma...er-canon-pixma-mx700/q/loc/101/205557539.html
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage...PGR&srccode=cii_5784816&cpncode=17-24201428-2

This is their network model. It's not my favorite as it has the same
resolution as the i860, but you can buy it for about $130.

[mp620]
To be honest, I'm avoiding this model because they shunk the size of
their cartridges. IIRC the big black is down to 19ml rather than
25-26ml. There is a cost per page increase of at least .5c/page
jumping up to the next cartridge, and another .5c/page to this model.
But it's a $100 printer that has network on board, and wifi.

I don't know the button presses to get the printer to print out it's
history.

There are obviously other choices, for the office environment it's not
unreasonable to go with a HP businessjet. These guys take bigger
cartridges and support network.
 
Correction

The mx700 is now $100 from Amazon.com

This falls into the category of if you are not printing with your
printers, it makes sense to have fewer printers. A given set of
cartridges for an i860 is $55-$60

The mx700 only takes 4 tanks. It doesn't include the extra dye black
useful for duplex printing and photos. Otherwise it's similar in
resolution to the i860. Text quality would be the same.

Taking two to three units out of service (zip locking the heads with a
moist towel and head cap) would likely save a set of cartridges per
year depending on how much you print.
 
Correction

The mx700 is now $100 from Amazon.com

This falls into the category of if you are not printing with your
printers, it makes sense to have fewer printers. A given set of
cartridges for an i860 is $55-$60

The mx700 only takes 4 tanks. It doesn't include the extra dye black
useful for duplex printing and photos. Otherwise it's similar in
resolution to the i860. Text quality would be the same.

Taking two to three units out of service (zip locking the heads with a
moist towel and head cap) would likely save a set of cartridges per
year depending on how much you print.
Click to expand...

Waste of time and space
 
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