Pixma Pro 10 Cartridge Change

[pumpkinaddict]

I have a new Canon Pixma Pro 10 printer and would like to know when to change a cartridge. I noticed when a cart is low an ! mark appears when trying to print indicating a cart is low. Does this mean the cart needs to be replaced now? Can you damage the print head when printing with a low cart? Can you print until the cart is completely empty? I seems like there is still ink in the cart when you get the ! exclaimation mark. Ink is expensive so hate to waste ink. If you keep printing with a low cart if it runs out in the middle of a print job what happens? Can you replace the cart and then resume printing? Sorry for so many questions. Thanks Dean

[jrhoffman75]

Welcome to the forum. 

I have a Pro-100, but the approach is the same. 

When you see ! you also see a message about preparing a new cartridge. All I do is make sure I have a new cartridge. 

You can keep printing. At some point you will get a message that ink has run out and printing will stop. 

At that point I replace the empty cartridge and also any other cartridges that have an ! showing - basically any cartridge with a flashing light. 

The reason I do that is that when a cartridge is replaced the printer goes through a purge cycle that purges all cartridges. 

Before I adopted my current approach there were instances where the purge cycle triggered an empty cartridge alert. Replacing that second cartridge would trigger a new purge cycle. Sometimes you see it called the "domino effect" on line. 

Even though you might replace one or more cartridges before they are in empty alert in the long run you save ink. 

[pumpkinaddict]

Thank John, So if you print until the cartridge is empty and the print job stops does it resume onced you replaced the empty cart? Or is that print job trashed. I also saw somewhere that printing until empty will damage the print head, you're saying no. Thanks, Dean

[jrhoffman75]

The printer stops before it is fully empty. I think there is a way to override, but I never have done that.

I don’t recall if it restarted OK or whether the print was ruined. I usually just replace when I get two or more ! indications.