need help resetting ink cartridge to avoid low ink message

March 15, 2011 11:31 AM

I have a Canon MX320 multifunction copier/printer/scanner/fax. The ink cartridges don't last very long, so I refilled them. But, I can't get it to recognize that the cartridge is now full. Am unable to reset it. Have looked & looked on Google & tried lots of methods. It prints fine, since there is ink, but the problem is since the printer thinks there's no ink, it stores new faxes in memory rather than printing them out. I can retrieve them there, but it's a hassle. So, I'd like to figure out how to reset the machine to tell it that it does have a new cartridge or to over ride the storing new faxes in memory & forcing it to print automatically.
posted by Mimidae to Computers & Internet (6 answers total)

I have the MX340. The cartridge-refilling store around the corner looked up the parts in the database and told me "we cannot reset these cartridges, when we fill them the printer will continue to read the serial number and continue to tell you that they cartridges are almost out of ink, and you just keep pressing OK."

They have something like an EPROM burner, that sends flash memory to a ROM chip
This resets the memory of the cartridge, like the movie Total Recall.

He also told me that the MX340 has a sponge, and needs to be refilled in a vaccuum.

1] verify that you have indeed refilled the cartridges, visit an cartridge filling store and find out if you need to fill them in a vaccuum.

2] run a cleaning cycle, or run the "replace cartridge" cycle. If the MX320 reads the serial number from the cartridge, and checks against system memory, you are SOL.

Canon has hundreds of engineers who work hard every day to prevent you from refilling your cartridges, and in fact get bonuses and drink shots of Patron every time you buy a new Canon cartridge.
posted by ohshenandoah at 12:06 PM on March 15, 2011

I had this exact problem with an older Canon inkjet model and I found a somewhat shady 3rd party utility that gets past the problem, forcing the driver to ignore its cartridge-check routine. Have you looked for such a thing?

Canon has hundreds of engineers who work hard every day to prevent you from refilling your cartridges, and in fact get bonuses and drink shots of Patron every time you buy a new Canon cartridge.

I think most inkjets are pretty pathetic but Canon has always seemed especially heinous in this regard.
posted by werkzeuger at 12:23 PM on March 15, 2011

to derial a tiny bit further, IIRC it was Canon whose fine print on inkjet cartridges informed you that you didn't own the cart, you were merely licensing it...
posted by werkzeuger at 12:25 PM on March 15, 2011

Best answer: In my experience, you can get away with refilling most Canon cartridges indefinitely - provided you refill them before they're recognised as empty.

If you look carefully at most of them, as well as a chip they also have a little reflective / prismatic "no ink" detector in them. As far as I can tell, the "low ink" warning comes from a counter on the chip (i.e. it's a guess), while the "empty" comes from that detector. Once that's been tripped it's written to the chip, and refilling won't work.
posted by Pinback at 3:24 PM on March 15, 2011 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thank you all for the answers/ comments. I think I'll refill my color cartridge now, go buy a new (& hopefully last) black cartridge & then down a shot of Patron. :)
posted by Mimidae at 6:03 AM on March 16, 2011

Response by poster: I finally found how to over ride it from storing new faxes in memory & forcing it to print automatically. It was in the help index for the printer. Was not easy to find- I had looked. So, now it gives an error message that the black ink amount is unknown. I need to keep it topped up, since it forces printing, if it gets too low, I might receive a fax that's unreadable if the ink was too low. And per the suggestion above, I'll keep the color cartridge filled up so it never gets to the point where it senses it's low.
posted by Mimidae at 3:27 PM on April 29, 2011