Found a new use for my new digital scale: Estimate cartridge level, would this work?

**aab1** · 11-28-2010

One of the limitations that's annoying on my Canon copier is that it doesn't tell you the toner level, so you don't know if you can make another 3000 prints or another 300 prints, so I must keep extra toner/cartridges if I don't want to run out.

Recently I got a new digital scale to weigh my packages I ship to better calculate shipping.

Well today I realized I can weigh an empty cartridge, zero the scale, and then weigh the cartridges in my printer to estimate toner left. I know they hold 85 grams of toner so I can get a good idea.

But I guess the waste toner in the cartridge would render the result inaccurate? Is there a rule of thumb of how much percent of toner ends up in the waste compartment?

The empty cartridge I weighed was fully empty, I had emptied the waste compartment also. If I weighed an unmodified empty cartridge (which has the waste full), would I then get an accurate toner quantity?

**sdrawkcab** · 11-28-2010

Ok I'll bite................you are the BIGGEST LOSER i have ever met, you make zaza look like a....... Professional.

**aab1** · 11-28-2010

Because I want a way to estimate how much toner I have left? You have issues...

Anyway as I said before I got my lesson with this Canon and will stick with HP next time, the HP version of this printer has a boatload more features than the Canon (toner gauge, double sided scanning, no 99 page print limit, print quality diagnostic pages, user friendly menus, I'd keep going on but I'd surely exceed the message length limit).

**sdrawkcab** · 11-28-2010

still a LOSER

**sdrawkcab** · 11-28-2010

Found a new use for my new digital scale

I have a suggestion....

**Eric1968** · 11-28-2010

Originally Posted by sdrawkcab

Ok I'll bite................you are the BIGGEST LOSER i have ever met, you make zaza look like a....... Professional.

LOL!!

**sdrawkcab** · 11-28-2010

Thanks Eric,

Where do these people come from?

**mrwho** · 11-28-2010

Some Canon tech correct me if I'm wrong BUT, the way I see it, that will never work.

- All the color machines I know, as soon as you open and close the door, do some kind of stabilization cycle;
- When stabilizing, the machine creates a series of patterns on the belt to be measured and calibrate the machine;
- To create those patterns, toner is spent.

So, when you open the machine's door in order to weight the toner cartridges, when you insert them back into the machine, it will use a little bit of toner, throwing your calculations away, since there's no way to know how much toner is spent, specially if the machine has different stabilization cycles from time to time.

It also amuses me to think that, while fiddling around with your machine, opening and closing the doors, turning the machine off and on, you probably already spent some pages worth of toner without taking a single copy. Way to go!

PS: Don't listen to my forum comrades - please don't go away. You're far too amusing!

**aab1** · 11-28-2010

If I open the door while it's powered off it wouldn't know I opened it, and I would only weigh the cartridges maybe 1-3 times at most when I need to have an idea of how much is left.

BTW I downloaded the manual for the HP version of this printer and it has even more extra features than I thought, this Canon is ridiculously limited in so many ways. Another feature of the HP I'd really like is an option to ignore "low/out of toner" situations. The Canon refuses to print when there's half the toner left which is fraudulent in my opinion. I know this because when I got the "Out of toner" the first time, I was able to get as many prints after the "out of toner" error as I did before the error before any fading on the prints by simply opening and re closing the cartridge door every 100 prints or so and shaking the cartridge that was "empty". This feature would let me buy toner without having to get a replacement smart chip for every 85 grams of toner I buy.

Some reviewers mention they took apart the cartridge after the "out of toner" error and were absolutely furious to see the cartridge was still at least half full yet the printer refused to print.

At $700 per cartridge set, that's at least a $350 ripoff per set, not to mention the Canon branded cartridges are considerably more expensive than the HPs and the only difference is a Canon sticker instead of an HP sticker, that's why I get re manufactured HP cartridges (the re manufactured ones are also much cheaper in HP than Canon). Plus HP lets you run the cartridge dry.

Does anyone know if there's a hidden service menu key combination for this model? I'd like to know if there is a hidden feature to ignore out of toner errors.