Technical > PC Hardware Discussion/Reviews > Cannon MP620 ink usage...

Cannon MP620 ink usage...

I have the same problem with Canon printers! Think it's because of the different "kind" of black they are made of. Depends on usage like if you're printing for photos, plain grayscale prints, etc. But I myself am not sure. It's always the bigger more expensive "black" that gets used up too :/

I guess when we replace the color cartridges, we'll set the default for greyscale printing (unless we really need color), and see if that causes that left-hand cartridge to be used....

Anyone else seen this?

Just a guess, but when you print something black, all the colors are used to make black instead of using the black cartridge.

Then I searched and found this:

»wwww.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthr···62874627

This gives you a way to print using the black cartridge only.

reply to batsona
A lot of printers will use colours and "photo black" printing greyscale images when in default settings. For example HP uses the same process with it's inkjet and colour laser printers. The argument is that doing so will can increase the number of shades and produce a smoother gradient then printer can reproduce when compared to printing using plain black.

Just read and found more info. The small black cartridge is used for color printing. Document printing uses the larger cartridge. But when printer is set to Plain paper, it uses the large black pigment ink cartridge. As soon as you change the paper type, it will use the smaller black dye ink cartridge.

I wish there was an easy way to determine which black cartridge is being used... I'll give this a try. The article at the link said to switch paper to 'plain', then enable grayscale.

I guess if 90% of what we print is email (black only), I could tell the printer drive to print black only, until we needed to print in color...

I think this link will give you a better idea of how to get your printer to print using the small cartridge. It's just one post.

»www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewto···?id=4592

This should answer your initial question. You're not doing anything wrong, except that you're always using the same kind paper when you're printing. That's why you end up with a full small cartridge. And the reason for two cartridges of the same color is that the bigger one contains pigment ink, the smaller one dye ink.

Now THAT sounds like the most plausible solution yet:

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The large black cartridge contains pigment ink and is used when you tell the printer you are printing on plain paper. The small black cartridge contains dye ink and is used when you tell the printer you are printing on any kind of photo paper. If you are desperate and want to get something printed before getting a new large black cartridge, you can tell your printer that you are printing on matte paper and it will use the small dye ink cartridge, but you really should get your large black cartridge replaced as soon as possible.
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We'll give it a try. I guess we'll just have to print grayscale on photo-paper to start using that cartridge on the LH side (see screenshot in orig msg)

reply to Mdoc
I think I've got it - after a week of printing greyscale on matte paper, I noticed that the LH side cartridge has dropped just a tad..! We'll leave it like this - when printing out emails, if they have a drop of color in them etc etc - it's not important to see that really.. we'll just print it in greyscale.

Then, when one of the kids has a school project, we'll turn on color-mode. It's OK to replace one black cartiridge at a time - it's better than my other printer that had one color cartrige, and combined them all to make black. ---I was ready to sign up for cartridge-of-the-week club - that's how often I'd need one on that old printer.

As a response, I was thinkin' "happy coloring," but I'll change that to "happy greyscaling." And happy thanksgiving!