ip7250 always seems to use the small black cartridge

[broadstairs]

I am finding that when I print PDFs or just text from an editor my ip7250 using TurboPrint always uses the small cartridge for the black and never seems to use the larger black cartridge. I was under the impression that documents printed in black text should print with this larger cartridge. Is there ant way to alter this in the setup?

Stuart

[zedonet]

Hello broadstairs,

the usage of the pigmented (big) black cartridge or the smaller photo black cartridge is dependent on the media type that you have selected in the driver. Normally, pigmented black is only used for "plain paper", the photo black is used when glossy or coated papers are selected. The reason is that pigmented black is not soaked up from coated papers and stays on the surface (not scratch resistant, often "bronzing" effect) while the other inks soak into the coating.

[broadstairs]

OK well on the TP Control display I have plain paper set as the default but when I look at the Ink Counters it shows as the Pigmented Black being used but in fact it is using the photo black. It is like TP has it the wrong way round. See image attached.

TPink.png (45.92 KiB) Viewed 5486 times

Stuart

[broadstairs]

I just wanted to confirm that the cartridge which has run out and had to be replaced was the small photo black. The pigmented black is showing full.

TPink1.png (15.27 KiB) Viewed 5480 times

Stuart

[broadstairs]

Can you please explain why when using plain paper the photo black was used up and the pigmented black has hardly been used despite the usage displayed on my screenshot.

Stuart

[broadstairs]

Having just managed to get a pdf printed on plain paper using pigmented ink I had to set grey scale, why does this have to be done to get the pigmented ink used? I'd expect it to use pigmented ink along side the colour inks when set to 300dpi and plain paper and colour mode it is plain paper after all. Even printing from a text editor in colour uses photo black with plain paper and 300dpi. It is not printing images! In my view it should always use pigmented ink on plain paper irrespective of the colour setting.

Stuart

[zedonet]

I can assure that with the media setting "Plain Paper", no ink from the "Photo Black" cartridge is printed on paper.

The printer still consumes a bit of photo black because of the cleaning process (which is not controlled only by the printer firmware and not by the printer driver).

The difference between color and grey scale mode is that in color mode, lighter shades of grey are mixed from CMY. In Grey scale mode, only black ink is used.

[broadstairs]

My issue was that my photo black cartridge ran out, the small one, and the pigment black was pretty much 99% full and I've only been printing PDFs on plain paper. So how do you account for the photo black running out when none of the other colours have and the pigment black was 99% full? I know a small amount is used for cleaning but in that case all the colours would have been empty!

Stuart