Replacement Ink Cartridges for CHIP-Based Printers (MP600)

Well, I have a Canon ip420 and it takes those pesky chipped cartridges. (The same ones as your MP600, the PGI-5BK, CLI-8BK, CLI-8C, CLI-8M & CLI-8Y) You are really tied in to the Canon profit scheme. The chip on the cartridge means the printer "knows" if you try to use 3rd party or refilled cartridges. If you install one, it warns you that using that cartridge may invalidate your Canon warranty, and makes you click "yes" that you agree to that, and afterwards, ink level monitoring won't work for that cartridge.

Just recently, however, some 3rd party cartridge stores here in Great Britain (Cartridge World is one chain that does) have started offering a refill service where you take in your "empty" (in reality, nearly empty - you don't want to run it right out) cartridge and they refill it and also reset the chip so that the printer thinks it is a brand new Canon cartridge and just accepts it.

They are charging half the price of a new Canon cartridge at Staples. I am going to try it next time I need a cartridge. What have I got to lose? The printer is out of warranty now -- and-- for the same price as a complete set of Canon cartridges, I can get a new similar or better printer (complete with a full ink load if I choose carefully!)

I ran my old Canon BJC-250 for years on refills. The ink can be just as good as original.

Thanks so much bud.

I'm gonna check the Staples in my place (toronto).

If anyone else has any ideas, feel free to share.

Thanks

No, I meant the Cartridge World ones were half the price of the regular Canon ones from Staples!!!

You could try Bargain Bulk in Kitchener, ON (N2M 1A6)

Hey........sorry, my mistake....yeah...cartridgeworld, it is.

Looks like what you have given me is an excellent solution.

After tons of googling, I still had never heard of Mr.Inkjet, Cartridge World or Bargain Bulk. After your reply, I bumped in to each of them.

Now I have some great options. Thanks so much man.

Can I ask you two more...

1, Would you recommend refilling from Cartridge World or buying compatibles from Bargain Bulk?

2, You said I shouldn't let the ink run down completely. But I still have to take those cartridges off and take 'em to the store and bring them back. Would the printhead dry up by that time (a day or two).
If not, then what is the point of NOT letting the ink run down totally....what difference does it make?

(hope i didn't confuse you with my last question

by the way.......it says your location is France.

Are you an Alizee fan?

I just watched her "jai maire" (not sure if that spelled right) and just love her.

Hi, batgal...

I'm actually English, but I live in France some of the time, I work for a company with offices in both countries, and I swap locations about every 3 months - suits me fine, I love France and plan to retire there (here!)

Funnily enough, I do like Alizée, and yes, "J'en ai marre" is a nice song. "Moi, Lolita", her début hit has a rather racy title for Anglo-Saxon tastes maybe... her first album was called "Gourmandises", and her second is "Mes Courants Electriques". At the start of her career she got a lot of help and support from Mylène Farmer, one of my favourite French singers. You can find videos of Alizée on Youtube... Alizée married fellow French singer Jérémy Châtelain in late 2003. Since her marriage she has taken a break from singing, but is slated to return with a new album soon. (It says on Wikipedia)

My favourite French act is a Gothic rock band called Indochine. I am a heavy duty fan of theirs, and it was a really amazing experience to go to a concert in Nice last year.

Getting to your ink questions,



I haven't had to use either yet, but I am planning to get a cartridge refilled at Cartridge World in Bristol, England on my next visit. This is because they assure me they can reset the chip so that the printer thinks it is getting a brand new official Canon cartridge.

I do not know if Bargain Bulk or other compatible cartridges will fool the printer in the same way. Some compatible suppliers sound fine at first, but it turns out you have to use a scalpel to cut the chip off the old cartridge of the same colour and stick it on the new one with a tiny bit of double sided Scotch tape and you still get all the Canon warnings and have to disable ink monitoring, which I don't want to do, as I shall explain in a minute.

Actually, whichever source I use, i think it is a good idea to press them quite firmly in this issue to make sure they can supply what you need.



A day or two should be OK. At most you might have to run a cleaning cycle.

The main problem is not the head drying out, the problem is the ink running out. Canon inkjets are "thermal" inkjets, that is, they work by heating up the ink so some of it boils and the pressure forces ink droplets through the tiny holes in the print head and onto the paper. If the print head ever runs dry, the tiny heating elements in the printhead would quickly burn out if you tried printing or even if you turned the printer on (It "purges" the print head by firing all the nozzles every so often to avoid blockages).

A new printhead would cost as much as, or more than, a new printer.

This is unlike laser printers, where the only consequence of running without sufficient toner would be a lot of blank or partly printed pages.



It is important to be able to have, and to obey the "ink out" warning, which is set at a level to ensure that the print head will never run dry.

Great advice.

Thanks man.

I will make sure that I find out what they think about the INK STATUS thingy.

Hey............i checked out Indochine...heard this one: J´ai demandé a la lune.

Its okay.......hehe. I might like it bettter after hearing many times.

Anyways........my love is always Alizee. Apart from the songs, she is just a cutie mainly in Jai'n marre and la isla bonita (madonna's).

Later bro (thanx again).