Canon S520 - Ink disappearing?!?

[cassell90]

All,

I have a Canon S520 inkjet printer. I purchased new ink cartridges for the printer and installed them. I left the printer turned on 24x7. I used a different printer for daily printing, so the S520 sat idle for one month. When I tried to print, all the cartridges were empty.

I bought new cartridges. I installed them and left the printer on 24x7 again. I printed nothing. In two weeks the cartridges were half empty. I turned off the printer and the ink appears to be staying in the cartridges.

Any insight?

-Stephen

 

[UncleRick]

I am not familiar with the Canon S520 inkjet printer. However I used to repair ink jet printers (10+ yrs ago). I do not know how they work these days but I imagine they haven't changed much.

There was a timer that caused the printer to clean the print head at a specified time to stop it from drying up. You ever see very thin lines in a printout? usually a nozzle with dried up ink, although not always.

Anyway, part of this cleaning is to squirt ink though the head, sometimes passed a sensor that detects ink. That does use up ink but not as much as you are talking about, unless the ink tanks are smaller these days.

Keeping it turned off did not help either. If it was off long enough the head would dry out. The capping unit may be better these days but I doubt it. (the capping unit is supposed to keep the head fresh when not in use)

You might try calling Canon's support line and ask if it is a know problem, they may have a upgrade or patch. Half a tank in two weeks seems a little steep.

Good luck,

 

[g8crapachino]

I've never had that problem with the S520. Most Canons automatically cap themselves after a certain time rather then wasting ink every few minutes.

Also, the drivers from Canon have options for "Auto Power On" and "Auto Power Off". Look on the maintenance tab in the properties for the printer. Simply enabling those function would save you the trouble of even turning the printer on and off manually. Once enabled, the printer would turn itself on when needed then turn itself off after a few minutes (from 1 to 60 minutes, whatever you choose).

These have been a standard features on all Canons BJ printers for several years.

 

[greenb]

Stephen, was this problem ever resolved? My S520 just has started doing exacly the same thing.