TurboPrint & PrintFab

I need to charge for a printing job, so I want to estimate the % ink used per page from the counters. Can someone tell me the ink average count for a full Canon 8 cartridge?

>> Or let me put it another way: how does turboprint calculate the base from which to determine the % used for each ink cartridge?

Richard

Hello Richard,

TurboPrint displays the number of ink drops that are printed on the page. This is useful to compare the effects of settings like the "Intensity" slider or "Inksave" print mode and also to compare ink usage for different photos.

However, it cannot be reliably used to calculate printing costs or to determine when an ink cartridge is empty, as the size of ink drops is different in different print modes (media type & print quality).
Also, ink consumption caused by print head cleaning cannot be monitored by TurboPrint (this is controlled by printer firmware).

So, how do you calculate the percentage a cartridge is used? That is reported, and if it's approximately meaningful then you must have some information on the total volume of ink and the volume of ink used.

Richard

zedonet wrote:Hello Richard,

TurboPrint displays the number of ink drops that are printed on the page. This is useful to compare the effects of settings like the "Intensity" slider or "Inksave" print mode and also to compare ink usage for different photos.

However, it cannot be reliably used to calculate printing costs or to determine when an ink cartridge is empty, as the size of ink drops is different in different print modes (media type & print quality).
Also, ink consumption caused by print head cleaning cannot be monitored by TurboPrint (this is controlled by printer firmware).

Is it really this way? can't it really not calculate printing cost or it can but it is not that reliable? I thought that it can even determine the level of an ink cartridge or when its empty..

Hello briant30,

ink levels are determined by the printer itself - TurboPrint just displays what is reported by the printer. Some printers just calculate the amount of ink consumed (by printing, head cleaning, automatic head maintenance when switching the printer on, etc.), some printers have additional hardware to adjust the calculated ink levels (e.g. a prism with detector).
Of course you can use the ink consumption values calculated by TurboPrint to get an idea of the printing costs - however this will only be an estimation. Probably you will need to calibrate these counters first, e.g. by comparing the counters with the reported ink levels for some days and afterwards projecting average counters to ink levels (e.g. 123000 units per percent catridge capacity). This might help in calculating printing costs but is not very accurate.