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General discussion

Refilling ink tanks for Canon pixma MP500

Oct 10, 2006 1:47PM PDT

Has anyone figured out a way to break this system block yet?

"Canon has instituted a (contemptible) ink control scheme that virtually prohibits refilling or use of after-market cartridges. The Canon tanks are easily refilled but the check system then intrudes to make subsequent printing almost impossible, a pure marketing ploy under the guise of quality assurance"

Discussion is locked

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WAG here...
Oct 12, 2006 1:44AM PDT

Canon maybe following the same technology that disallows refills of owner inkcarts, if used then refilled and remounted again. The IC chip will store or place info of itself to the printer being used and a "memory point" is recorded, thus disallows old inkcarts. BUT, it does this for only 3? inkcarts, so a 4th refilled inkcart can be mounted. Basically, the printer sees an old inkcart it already had used, but if that same inkcart is cycled after 3 previous inkcarts have gone through, it can re-used. Thus, you need a recycling rountine to break the memory point the printer is storing. I hope this explains it or is similar to what Canon is doing. Of course you can google away for more info. Being so new a printer, solutions maybe lagging and if not a popular printer, even longer a work-around to be had. The Canon reasoning to maintain good output is valid and this being a "photo" type printer hi-standards do cause some grief if too cheap of inks are used, it had happened to other printer makers and shouldn't be so easily discounted. Of course, selling new inkcarts is where the real money is in "consumables" for printers.

tada -----Willy Happy

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same
Oct 24, 2006 4:07AM PDT

I have been experiencing the same problem. Still looking for a fix
regards, PJ

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Work-around I use
Oct 24, 2006 9:04AM PDT

I just bought an "inkstationrefill.com" brand refill kit from Meijer (Wal-mart type store). While looking for a solution, I found a PDF from an ink refill company for the MP500 at

http://www.inksupply.com/html/pdf/can_cli8_pgi5refill.pdf

On page 2, it says when the low ink warning turns on, you can press and hold the stop/cancel button for 5 seconds. This should disable the warning. You will, however, need to monitor your own ink levels and refill accordingly. Good luck.