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Author Topic: Missing Yellow ink ipf6400  (Read 2585 times)

DryAxE

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Missing Yellow ink ipf6400
« on: September 17, 2015, 03:45:16 pm »

I have found information that Canon large format printers dont show cloged nozzles unless you print nozzle check pattern in service mode. Today i did this test, that showed me 2 cloged nozzles on 3 weeks old ipf6400 printer. Well i let the printer on in service mode since i knew that later i will do some printing to see if clogs go away without need for head cleaning. Well few hours have passed and i just turned off and on printer and when starting up it began with some nozzle check and cleaning. After that some of the colors levels lowered slightly but yellow has gone totaly and it is telling me to prepare to replace it soon.
Inks were first 90ml cartridges that you get with printer. I only printed about 12m2 with those 90ml set and before nozzle check i still had most of the inks.

What could have gone wrong, where did the ink go and why?
« Last Edit: September 17, 2015, 03:51:53 pm by DryAxE »
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DryAxE

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Re: Missing Yellow ink ipf6400
« Reply #1 on: September 18, 2015, 04:26:33 am »

Well it looks that i have found the answer by searching the forum, my bad. Yellow and Gray are supposed to be the first two colors that need replacements with new ipfx400 printers. I just did not expect it to happen so soon.
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Scott Hein

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Re: Missing Yellow ink ipf6400
« Reply #2 on: September 18, 2015, 01:00:36 pm »

I installed my 6400 in early July, and GY dropped to 20% yesterday generating the low ink warning.  All the others (including yellow) are still showing 60%, which is where they were after the initial charge.  I have done a fair amount of printing, but mostly relatively small prints so far as I profile, test, and dial in my workflow.  So, gray is definitely used faster and it sounds like I will also have to keep an eye on yellow.  I sure wish the ink level indication had a bit more resolution than 20%.  It would be nice to have a better sense of how quickly the different inks are being used so I can plan when to order replacements.

-Scott
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DryAxE

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Re: Missing Yellow ink ipf6400
« Reply #3 on: September 18, 2015, 01:57:14 pm »

As you mentioned GY color, this one droped to 40%, Y has only few drops of ink left, others are indicated at 60% as they were from begining of instalation. I also called my local service and this problem is common with Canon printers but only with first cartridges they say.
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Landscapes

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Re: Missing Yellow ink ipf6400
« Reply #4 on: September 19, 2015, 03:20:16 am »

I sure wish the ink level indication had a bit more resolution than 20%.  It would be nice to have a better sense of how quickly the different inks are being used so I can plan when to order replacements.

-Scott

There is... but its in the software.  Load up the status monitor, then go to accounting.. then click on file and select "show ink and paper consumed".  Here you will get a run down of all colors in milliliters.  It will include all the ink from when the printer was first put into use, but if you keep track of when a cart is changed, then you have a very good idea of how much ink is actually used from each color and hence how much should actually be remaining. 
« Last Edit: September 19, 2015, 03:27:09 am by Landscapes »
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Scott Hein

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Re: Missing Yellow ink ipf6400
« Reply #5 on: September 19, 2015, 06:48:36 pm »

There is... but its in the software.  Load up the status monitor, then go to accounting.. then click on file and select "show ink and paper consumed".

Excellent - thanks.  I mostly print from my mac and the mac version of the status monitor doesn't have the accounting function.  However, I can access it through one of my other Windows PCs.

-Scott
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Nora_nor

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Re: Missing Yellow ink ipf6400
« Reply #6 on: September 23, 2015, 10:53:32 am »

I heard about someone who printed 2 m2 with a new epson4900 back then when it was new, and the grey was totally used up. But to be fair, it was black-and white printing.
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Geraldo Garcia

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Re: Missing Yellow ink ipf6400
« Reply #7 on: September 23, 2015, 03:35:34 pm »

There is... but its in the software.  Load up the status monitor, then go to accounting..

Actually, there is a better way (way more precise and faster IMHO):
Buy a culinary scale and weight the ink tanks. When you know the weight of a full tank and the weight of an empty one is simple to calculate the exact amount of ink in any tank just by weighting it.
I weight the tanks every Monday and I made a simple spreadsheet to keep track of the levels.
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Landscapes

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Re: Missing Yellow ink ipf6400
« Reply #8 on: September 23, 2015, 06:10:20 pm »

Actually, there is a better way (way more precise and faster IMHO):
Buy a culinary scale and weight the ink tanks. When you know the weight of a full tank and the weight of an empty one is simple to calculate the exact amount of ink in any tank just by weighting it.
I weight the tanks every Monday and I made a simple spreadsheet to keep track of the levels.

I find the the quoted ml used to be quite accurate, and to be honest, i would hate to take out the cart regularly.  I know the epsons, since they are pressurized, might suffer from this more, but I'm just kind of so nervous around my printer.  The less I tinker with it, the less likely I think I will have a problem. 

I do weigh the empty carts though, and its amazing how each one is the same weight when empty, and even by shaking, you can tell that every last dropped is used.  On my 6100 before, you could never let them go empty in the middle of a print because you might see lines missing, and this way I would always throw out a few ml of ink if I was about to start a large print and didn't want to mess it up. But with the 6400 and the sub ink tanks, I can let each one go completely empty and use up every last drop.
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Geraldo Garcia

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Re: Missing Yellow ink ipf6400
« Reply #9 on: September 24, 2015, 12:56:33 am »

I find the the quoted ml used to be quite accurate, and to be honest, i would hate to take out the cart regularly.  I know the epsons, since they are pressurized, might suffer from this more, but I'm just kind of so nervous around my printer.  (...)
(...) But with the 6400 and the sub ink tanks, I can let each one go completely empty and use up every last drop.

And that is exactly why it is OK to take the IPF X400 tanks out: The sub ink tanks! The ink literally drops from the tanks to the sub ink tanks and the air bubbles are removed from the sub tank. Even without removing the tanks air always enter the sub tank system, it is designed to be like that.  :)
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Landscapes

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Re: Missing Yellow ink ipf6400
« Reply #10 on: September 24, 2015, 10:59:42 pm »

And that is exactly why it is OK to take the IPF X400 tanks out: The sub ink tanks! The ink literally drops from the tanks to the sub ink tanks and the air bubbles are removed from the sub tank. Even without removing the tanks air always enter the sub tank system, it is designed to be like that.  :)
Ok... you got me there.. I made it too easy for you by giving you the material for the rebuttal! :D

The question of course is if you notice a difference between what the accounting section reports, and what your own measurements show.  I think the density of the ink was shown to be just slightly above 1 g/ml (maybe like 1.04), so it should be fairly easy to take some weighs now and note the amount of ink used in your most used colors (most used to make this not be a multi-month test).  Then after the accounting shows that 30 or 40ml is used, we could weight the carts again to see if this is in fact how much is gone.  Of course a few data points, such as at 20,40,60,80 ml would be best, but you get the idea.  I bet that the accounting tab will be within a few % of the actual weights.  But since I haven't done this, I can only speculate.
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Geraldo Garcia

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Re: Missing Yellow ink ipf6400
« Reply #11 on: September 25, 2015, 12:37:45 pm »

The question of course is if you notice a difference between what the accounting section reports, and what your own measurements show.

As far as I tested the accounting seems to be accurate enough for prints, but it ignores ink wasted during cleaning, head swap and calibrations. That is why I weight the tanks periodically.
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Landscapes

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Re: Missing Yellow ink ipf6400
« Reply #12 on: September 25, 2015, 05:54:42 pm »

As far as I tested the accounting seems to be accurate enough for prints, but it ignores ink wasted during cleaning, head swap and calibrations. That is why I weight the tanks periodically.
Actually, I know that this is completely wrong.  I had major problems with my new 6400 and needed a new CPU board and carriage.  I was already monitoring my ink levels and its amazing how much ink was used.  Here is a screen capture from the software.  These were only two days apart, and you can see that there was really only one canvas print made, maybe it was just testing, I don't remember, but look at the huge difference in total ink.  This was after a first head change, which didn't end up fixing the problem and hence I needed to wait for new parts and stuff, but you can see the difference in ink is about 206ml.  If I assume 10ml of ink for the prints, then its just under 200ml used for the head change.  If we assume 6 color channels per head, that works out to about 30ml of ink gone for each color to do a head change, which sounds about right.

Just the other day I got stuck with not printing for a few days, so the printer first did a clean cycle, and I could see that about 15-20ml of ink was wasted for the clean cycle.  I try to print something every 2 days so that a clean cycle isn't triggered for this very reason.  15-20ml of ink wasted on a clean cycle will make lots of prints. Who knows, maybe the heads needed to be cleaned anyway and it might not use this much each time it sits for a few days, but the point is that this menu setting shows all ink used. 

EDIT:  In fact, as I analyze this, you can see that the colors that hardly change, 48ml to 50ml, were on the side that needed have the head change, which are the bottom 6.  Now the top six mind you still don't really change in a uniform amount, so I'm not sure what to make of that... hmmmm
« Last Edit: September 25, 2015, 05:59:10 pm by Landscapes »
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Geraldo Garcia

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Re: Missing Yellow ink ipf6400
« Reply #13 on: September 25, 2015, 07:13:03 pm »

Actually, I know that this is completely wrong. (...)
(...) In fact, as I analyze this, you can see that the colors that hardly change, 48ml to 50ml, were on the side that needed have the head change, which are the bottom 6.  Now the top six mind you still don't really change in a uniform amount, so I'm not sure what to make of that... hmmmm

You just proved what I said: the accounting is relatively accurate for prints but inaccurate when you factor cleanings and head change.
The culinary scale is your friend! ;)
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Landscapes

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Re: Missing Yellow ink ipf6400
« Reply #14 on: September 26, 2015, 12:00:40 am »

You just proved what I said: the accounting is relatively accurate for prints but inaccurate when you factor cleanings and head change.
The culinary scale is your friend! ;)

Well I still don't think so to be honest.  The reason why PC has the highest amount missing, 40ml, is because this was the channel that was giving me trouble, and after a head replacement, it still wasn't working and hence why I needed a new main board.  So I imagine that after the head change was done, it kept trying to clean or prime this color, maybe even the one below it since both of these are high.

Since my printer has been perfect ever since, I cannot test this out too well.  Even if I weight a cart just before I put it in and note how many ml's are used up to this point, most of this ink is going to go into prints and very little on maintenance or cleaning since I use my printer regularly.  But if I ever do encounter a head change in the future, I think I will try and both weigh the carts and note the reported usage so I can verify how accurate it is.
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