Here's an annoying one!

[myfathersson]

Was given an MX850 recently and was wondering about replacing my MP500
(the MP500 has an annoying habit of slowly but steadily emptying its
carts when NOT used, so Canon tells me. Not sure about the MX850. But
Canon tell me it is higher quality anyway)

Suddenly the MP500 started giving an incorrect head error message

Called Canon and asked whether this meant that my heads had died and
was told that it did. (implying that I need to buy another printer)

Spent a half a day with logistics changing printers in my minuscule
office to accommodate the gargantuan proportions of the MX850.

Then I received a survey email asking me about canon's service level.
Gave it a positive response because of Canon's policy of actually
letting customers get through to tech support as opposed to HP who do
all they can to deter you from calling TS

THEN I DISCOVERED THAT THERE IS A PERFECTLY GOOD - SIMPLE - RESET
PROCEDURE WHICH CANON WOULDN'T TELL ME ABOUT!

 

[Gernot Hassenpflug]

Was given an MX850 recently and was wondering about replacing my MP500
(the MP500 has an annoying habit of slowly but steadily emptying its
carts when NOT used, so Canon tells me. Not sure about the MX850. But
Canon tell me it is higher quality anyway)

Hi,

I help to add support for Canon inkjet printers for linux and MacOSX on
the gutenprint driver project. So I have built up some experience of
their printers, and their local (Japan) service.

Suddenly the MP500 started giving an incorrect head error message

You mention the reset procedure below. I don't know what error number
the MP500 gave you, but if the head is physically damaged, or the logic
board on the printer has damage, no reset procedure will help you.

Reset procedures I have found useful are those that reset the automated
ink waste tray full signal (some counter), thereby allowing one to
continue printing; and those that allow the reset of the carrtridge
empty signal (on chipped cartridges a real pain), which again allow one
to continue printing.

Called Canon and asked whether this meant that my heads had died and
was told that it did. (implying that I need to buy another printer)

Or the logic board. The error code can help to determine that sometimes,
but is ambiguous.

Spent a half a day with logistics changing printers in my minuscule
office to accommodate the gargantuan proportions of the MX850.


Then I received a survey email asking me about canon's service level.
Gave it a positive response because of Canon's policy of actually
letting customers get through to tech support as opposed to HP who do
all they can to deter you from calling TS
THEN I DISCOVERED THAT THERE IS A PERFECTLY GOOD - SIMPLE - RESET
PROCEDURE WHICH CANON WOULDN'T TELL ME ABOUT!

OK, now to the meat:

Canon has a very good (in my opinion, and I am far from a Canon fan)
service in Japan and I believe in Europe (but not, as I understand it,
in the USA) where they will repair a printer for a fixed sum (about
11500 JPY in Japan). I have in the past managed to break heads and logic
boards by switching broken heads between printers thereby shorting out
the logic boards (bad design, and naivete on my part). The repair to
such a machine (MP810 IIRC) was well worth the cost since it resulted in
basically a brand-new machine (logic board, and heads).

If you have access to such a service, it might be useful in future, but
I reckon the MP500 is too cheap a device to make it worthwhile. For the
MX850 it would be good though.

Now, as to quality of printing, the MX850 certainly has some good
points:

- duplex printing using the same modes as for single-sided printing for
plain media (seems not supported for Hagaki and envelope media). But
this comes at the expense of using only CMYK inks, which limits the
tonal variation.

- true monochrome modes when selecting monochrome printing for plain,
Hagaki and envelope media. So no wasted CMY inks there.

- has photo black for photo media (also used in addition to normal black
for adding tone to Hagaki and envelope media). Unfortunately, the physical
inks in the MX850 are only CMYKk, unlike more advanced photoprinters
which have photo cyan and photo magenta (cm) inks also.

- nozzles (4608) are much more than MP500 (1856): YKk inks have 512
nozzles each compared to MP500 256 for BK and 320 for k; CM inks have
1536 nozzles each compared to MP500 512.

So all in all, as Canon said, you will probably get higher quality
printing on the MX850 than on the MP500. You might use more ink though,
too.

The MP500 uses the same engine and has the same print modes as the
iP4200, and while I am not sure about it losing ink (cleaning cycles?)
when not in use, it certainly is a lot older by now. Besides it only had
1200ppi scanning, whereas the MX850 offers 4800ppi.

 

[myfathersson]

myfathersson <[email protected]> writes:

The point being that there wasnt anything wrong with the MP500, the
error message being itself erroneous: Or do you know something which I
dont?

I figured what you said but the meat of my posting was the reference
to logistics: I should have changed the printers long before!

My only question concerned people saying in reviews that the 850
doesn't give particularly god prints.

Do you have any experience of Imageclass printers? the real reason
for the changeover is that when the mp500 started giving trouble, I no
longer had any way or printing in colour: my 8180c only prints the
left third of the page and when I asked if anyone had any experience
on this, no one responded. Someone said it is some roller engaging at
the left of the printer inside somewhere which needs repositioning and
no one seems to know how

Many thanks

 

[Gernot Hassenpflug]

The point being that there wasnt anything wrong with the MP500, the
error message being itself erroneous: Or do you know something which I
dont?

All well and good then: now that you have discovered that these printers
can be resets (can you give the reset sequence also please?), it is a
good way to check oneself before handing over responsibility (and lucre!)
to others.

I figured what you said but the meat of my posting was the reference
to logistics: I should have changed the printers long before!
Ha!

My only question concerned people saying in reviews that the 850
doesn't give particularly god prints.

Yes, I have heard that too. The reason, I surmise, is that it is not
optimized for photo printing, ink-wise, indeed it is somewhat like the
lowest-scale printer in its functionality in that regard.

Do you have any experience of Imageclass printers? the real reason
for the changeover is that when the mp500 started giving trouble, I no
longer had any way or printing in colour: my 8180c only prints the
left third of the page and when I asked if anyone had any experience
on this, no one responded. Someone said it is some roller engaging at
the left of the printer inside somewhere which needs repositioning and
no one seems to know how

No sorry, no imageclass experience. Only iP, MP, MX, i, S and Pro
experience (and ALPS MicroDry printers).

 

[myfathersson]

Sorry, I cant remember what I did to reset the heads but I found it on
line and whether it worked or not seems to be irrelevant if Canon made
this printer to be thrown away after a time: When (I thought) this
thread concluded, I started using the MX and put the MP in a secondary
location where it has sat unused for around a whole month. When I
tried to use it again, I noticed that it has turned itself off, which
I assume is some normal power saving feature?

But when I turned it on again, it gave me endless WRONG PRINTER HEAD
messages despite numerous re-seatings of the head and carts.

The reason I am posting is that I didn't bother with any reset
procedure because when I checked the carts themselves (which were
mostly full a month ago), i discovered that except for yellow, they
are all flashing and completely empty again! This doesn't seem to be
a problem described by Canon as emptying slowly over time.

Talking of time, is it now time to throw this, now, annoyingly
expensive (I could have USED those carts in the 850) printer away?