Toner ink I have a clp500 which is a few years old. Rather than buying all 4 new toners, can I run it as a black and white printer only and replace the black toner

Was it a genuine toner cartridge? I bought some aftermarket ink cartridges for my canon. The colour one was OK but the black... The printer kept saying black empty. I put my nearly empty genuine one back and the fault disappeared. Put the copy one in and same result. I bought a genuine black and no problem.

Assuming that you aren't running out of ink, it probably needs either a good print head cleaning (beyond that the software does) or a print head replacement, if you model had replaceable print heads. My experience with Canon printers has been mixed, but some of them have replaceable print heads and some don't. Make sure you're not running out if ink before you proceed with the following.

You could try this first:

1. Get some distilled water.
2. Remove the print head and remove the ink tanks.
3. Get a shallow cup or dish and put the print head in it.
4.Add distilled water to just barely immerse the print head only.
5. Add several drops of the distilled water to the "inside" part of the print head in each color section.
6. Leave for several hours or overnight.
7. Remove the print head and discard the water, clean your cup or dish. If the print head is fixed and not removable, go to step 14.
8. CAREFULLY blot, do not rub, the bottom of the print head.
9. Run the "deep clean" print head cleaning cycle once.
10. Run the test print or nozzle check to see if it is now printing without white bars (skipping parts of the lines.
11. If this works, then do your print head alignment.
12. If this doesn't work, you might look into buying a special print head cleaning kit that has a syringe, a tube (or tubing), and an adapter or two in order to allow you to inject the special cleaning solution into and through the print head, doing whatever the directions tell you to do.
13. If that doesn't work, then see if you can buy a replacement print head.
14.If you weren't able to remove the print head for cleaning, then it may be time to consider it not worth the trouble and replacing it with another printer. I like the Brother brand of inkjet printers since they use much less ink during the cleaning cycle and some of the models have optional high-capacity ink tanks.

To avoid this happening in the future, make sure you use your printer at least every few days. Print something that has every color in it so that it keeps each part of the print head from drying out. Keep in mind that every time your printer runs a cleaning cycle, you use up quite a bit of ink for most brands of printers, so if you replace your printer, consider a Brother printer. It's not that Canon makes all bad inkjet printers. They've had some that were apparently problematic in the past (like the BJC-6000, which I went through 3 of those before the warranty expired), but they use a lot of ink when they run their print head cleaning cycle whenever the firmware determines that it needs to run the cycle.

If you are successful in getting the printer to print lines without missing bands of color, then keep the printer by all means. Consider getting some generic replacement ink tanks so that you can afford to run the printer every few days. Many printers are sold at a very low price because the company expects to make more money on replacement ink tanks. The lowest priced ones seem to use more ink, too.

Also, if you don't need color printing, consider a black and white laser printer. Before buying, check the price of the consumables -- toner at the very least, and if there are any replaceable parts other than the toner cartridge, find out how long those are supposed to last before replacement and how much they cost. Your first toner cartridge might be a "starter cartridge" which may not even be half full of toner, so buy a spare toner cartridge when you buy the laser printer. Some brands have a rather high cost per page because the replacement toner cartridges cost a lot.

Donald

Hi Linda
Is this ink or toner? Ink will expire if it is on a shelf too long. Toner is a powder that is applied with heat to the paper. It does not expire but will appear faded if the printer is in economy mode or low on toner. on a 4 drum system each drum is independent of the others and can run low or out at separate times. Therefor to save money only replace the empty drums. Have you changed the drum recently? If it is toner try removing it and shaking it, then reinsert it. If you have other boxes of this drum see if you can find a date on the box. ink over three years old may not work well.

This printer is designed to print up to 50 000 pages trough its life. After that the transfer belt and the drum have to be replaced but the price is more than a new printer. So first check the counter (press the button and it will print it)
The cheap toner has entered in the black developing module where it mixed with the remained old original toner. They differ and tend to curdle. This is why printouts are poor after installing the new original toner. Try to print 20-50 black pages to take the curdled mix out. The developing module is part of the drum unit. It is hard to take apart and clean but not impossible. Buying a new drum unit is the last step, even after getting a new printer.

Sounds like you may have wet toner, or was once wet toner. Ive worked on printers for years and I have actually found a few cartridges that had bad toner. Kind of like getting sugar or flower wet.
Also. sometimes the imaging unit won't charge the roller properly or the roller gets worn (I.E. Static Charge holds the toner to the drum until it is applied by the imaging unit)
So if you've replaced the imaging unit, then it almost has to be the toner itself or the toner drum. They are both part of the cartridge and the problem should go away if you replace the cartridge.

Good luck

If you will print only in black and white, your colour toner will never run out.

INK, not toner. Get a CISS for your printer. It will save you TONS of MONEY, never change a cartridge again and it will pay for itself in a month.
http://www.inkproducts.com/ink-store/

Hello, these printers tend to be finicky.

In other words, just replace the black toner. When the printer says its low, or empty, regardless of wether or not it is, just replace it.

Replacing the drum, when it says black toner needs to be replaced will do nothing to rectify the issue.

Buy only HP Toner and Drum cartridges for this printer. Do not try to refill toner cartridges, and do not reset drum. You will only end up destroying your printer in the process.

The metering blades in those cartridges go bad and do not allow the ink to get to the page. Look at the front of the toner cartridge, is should be a solid consistent black all the way across, if its streaky, not consistent all the way across replace the toner.
The other problem could be a dirty laser. If replacing the toner doesnt work let me know, I will tell you how to remove and clean the laser.

You just might have a faulty black toner cartridge think back did the problem arise when you installed the new black cartridge. Also is the toner a original if not change for a original.

Hope this Helps
Thanks J