Canon S400 Printer Question

[jackmccarron]

Hey group - I print mostly black ink only. When any of my 3 color cartridges goes empty I get a message telling me to replace that ink tank. The message won't go away till I replace that color even tho I've selected Black Only for printing.

How can I disable that message so I can print black only even when my color tanks are empty??

How does the printer "see" that a tank is empty. How can I trick it?

Is there a way to print black only with the color tanks REMOVED from the printer?

Thanks,
Jack

 

[Nodsu]

Where did you select black only? IIRC I could pint plain black just fine on my S400 even when the color tanks were empty..

Also, you should never remove the color tanks - the print head pipes gather dust, dry up and clog.

 

[jackmccarron]

Hey Nodsu - Thanks. From Printer Properties/Paper/Quality you can select Black and White or Color. Sounds like a good idea not to remove the color tanks.

My suspicion is that there's an optical sensor somewhere that "sees" the tank ink level status. I've looking inside the printer with flashlite, but can't see anything that looks like optical sensors. If it is optical, probably a well placed bit of duct tape (of course) would solve the problem.

 

[Tedster]

Do not remove empty ink tanks. Also it is a lot easier to buy generic ink and fill them yourself.

This is a good printer. I have it. But the heads will clog if proper maintenance is not taken.

 

[Nodsu]

I don't have the drivers for this printer installed.. Isn't there a place in the settings where you tell it what kind of tanks you have installed? Just say that you have the black-only setup.

 

[jackmccarron]

No, the only place to tell it black-only is where you pick color or black and white.

Still need answer on how to disable color tank ink sensors.

 

[Nodsu]

Please. Now I installed the S400 drivers, just for you. (You do have the latest drivers downloaded from Canon, right?)

In the advanced properties of your printer, the Main tab (the first thing you see), the first thing at the top is a "BJ cartridge" selection. Set it to Black.

 

[jackmccarron]

Nodsu - Thank you very much - That solves the problem. Black and white documents now print properly even with empty color tanks. Thank you for installing the drivers!

Jack