How To Reset Ink Level On Canon Pixma MP140/MP150 August 31st, 2010
It would seem that manufacturers are not happy any more simply selling you a product; instead they engineer in ways to try and retain your business and force you into buying their own brand consumables and/or replacement parts. In fairness, this makes for good business practice but for the cost conscious consumer, it’s not exactly good news. It wasn’t so long ago that I wrote a blog post regarding Lenovo and batteries. The Lenovo software will constantly remind you that you do not have a genuine battery if you replace yours with an aftermarket model and at the most inappropriate moment, redirect you to one of their sales sites in the hope that you will buy another genuine one. In fact, they’ll even give you a warning that your laptop may spontaneously combust if you continue to use an aftermarket one; the fact they are made by the same manufacturer in the same factory has nothing to do with it of course, they simply want your money at their inflated prices. It’s not just the once though, the pop ups and reminders happen time and time again.
We have an aging Canon MP140 Pixma inkjet printer. In fairness it didn’t cost a lot and it doesn’t get much use but its ideal as a second printer for printing off draft copies of documents; of course it also acts as a scanner and photocopier which are useful features. It was originally bought for printing photographs and actually for the cost, the results are quite impressive. The problem comes when it’s time to replace the consumables, its astonishing the difference in price between a full set of genuine Canon ink cartridges and a set of cheap (refilled) aftermarket equivalents from the likes of ASDA or Tesco. Of course this is all part of the master plan over at Canon (and in fairness, all the other printer manufacturers too; yes, I am referring to you Dell/Lexmark), you’re sold a relatively complex piece of kit that actually performs really well at a rock bottom price; the catch? Well the consumables are going to cost you more than the printer itself.
The printer will of course run perfectly well with non-genuine cartridges, however the printing software (both on your machine installed as part of the driver package and on the hardware controls on the printer itself) will refuse to acknowledge the presence of the new cartridges and will constantly remind you as with the Lenovo software above, that you are not using genuine Canon consumables. In this case, every time you print you are told that your ink has run out which clearly is not the case. It’s more frustrating than anything else, of course had I installed genuine Canon cartridges the ink level monitor would have automatically reset but now, no matter how many times I reinstall the cartridges or reset the printer; it simply keeps telling me I am out of ink even though they are new cartridges. The same would be true if I had taken a set of empty genuine Canon cartridges to the likes of Cartridge World to be refilled; the printer is clever enough to recognise the exact cartridges and will remember that it has run out of ink.
Well I am sorry Canon; I will not be buying your cartridges because I know a way around this problem. It’s actually quite simple all you need to do is perform a factory reset as would take place if you sent your printer back for service to fool the printer, then the levels reset and it is happy to use much cheaper, after-market consumables.
Just do the following:
- Disconnect the power supply to the printer by removing the power lead from the back
- Press and hold the Power Button whilst plugging the power lead back in, then whilst continuing to hold the button down press the Reset Button (the one with the red triangle inside the circle) twice
- Release the Power Button and after around 10 seconds the display will show ‘0’
- Press the + Button to change the value from ‘0’ to ‘1’
- Press the Colour Button; you’ll notice that both the A4 Plain Paper and A4 Photo Paper LEDs will now be on
- Make sure that there is some paper in the paper feeder
- Press the Power Button twice; the printer will now print some random information which you can discard
- Now open the printer cover (not the scanner cover) and remove the cartridges. With the printer still open, remove the power lead from the back of the printer once again
- Close the printer cover
- Replace the power lead and press the Power Button to turn the printer back on
- Now replace the cartridges and the ink level monitor will be reset
It’s about time that manufacturers acknowledged that owing to their inflated prices buying genuine consumables are simply too prohibitive for a lot of people. If they were to lower the cost (and let us be frank, does it really cost them that much to produce?) then I would not have an issue with them engineering in ways to try and manipulate you into buying their own consumables. But if they insist on keeping their prices so high, stop the nagging; we aren’t fooled and we aren’t going to buy from you anyhow. Remember a happy customer is a customer for life and above all else, the customer is always right!
I hope you find this useful.
Tags: canon, printer
This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 31st, 2010 at 12:27 pm and is filed under Blah, Personal Rants, Technology Related. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
53 Responses
Canon PIXMA MX330 InkJet All-In-One Printer | Digital World Says:
[...] How To Reset Ink Level On Canon Pixma MP140/MP150… | Mike Southby [...]
GERRY SWAN Says:
Cheers it was doing my head in many thanks
Mike Southby Says:
No worries Gerry, you’re not the only one; it nearly went out the window until I figured out a way of doing it ;)
Steve Says:
What a star. I love people like you who spend your own time finding ways round stuff like this to help others. Nice one.
Matt Says:
PERFECT!
Thanks
Mike Southby Says:
Thanks Steve, it’s good to know that others are benefiting.
Steve C Says:
Thanks Mike!!
Simply brilliant.
Steve in Helsinki
Dave W Says:
Hi there Mike, good work on figuring out how to reset your printer! I have been playing with my Canon MP490 to achieve the same results but to no avail. Do you have any tips on where to find some info specific to this printer?
No worries if not- i shall continue ‘button bashing’ and trawling the internet.
Keep up the good work,
Dave
Dave W Says:
Scratch that! In the end all I had to do was hold down one of the buttons for about 10 seconds (I think it was the reset/cancel button)…
Cheers, dave
Mike Southby Says:
@Dave, great news that you have managed to sort your problem. Be great it you could post up the technique you used so others could benefit if they have the same printer.
John Proudlock Says:
Hi Mike.I couldn’t get the ’0′ to appear.Printer goes straight to E then 4 flashing !
Ciaran Cassidy Says:
Hi Mike, thanks for this post but ’0′ doesn’t appear in my screen either. Any ideas?
Davies6942 Says:
Guys , I played around with the suggestions above to no avail .
Pulling together various posts for othr sites I managed to get my Pixma 140 to allow refilled carts as per below :-
After the printer initiaises , hold down the Cance/reset button for up to ten seconds then press the colour button . If yuo watch the printer’s status via the control panel and the Maintenance tab you will be notified that a refilled cartridge has been installed .
Tried after a rebbot and the fix took . I’d imagine replacing the cart would require this action to be performed again but have yet to test .
Hope this helps someone :)
gary Says:
worked a treat! thank you very much!
Peter Heydon Says:
Hi
Canon mp140 ink cartridges.
I’ve seen your solution on other sites and it clearly works for most but not for me. I’ve followed the first three instructions of your bullet points but then the display screen shows nothing, not even a zero and i therefore can’t proceed. It’s really annoying because i had some canon cartridges and when i went along to ‘Cartridge Right’ they persuaded me to do refills and absolutely assured me there would be no problem. Obviously i wasn’t aware of compatability problems until i put the things in and a dialogue box keeps coming up on screen stating that it doesn’t recognise them. HELP !!! Please and thankyou. Pete
Camski Says:
You are amazing – thank you
Eija Says:
Hi, same problem as John Proudlock, Ciaran Cassidy and it’s driving me crazy! Could somebody please help! Can’t get rid of the E5 error no matter what I try!
Camski Says:
Hi Mike – you were great in helping me sort out being able to reset the machine to print though now it won’t copy or scan. I have read all that I can but have no idea what to do, there is nothing to indicate that there is a problem?
james bell Says:
Hi Mike
Thanks worked a treat a friend gave me the printer cause of cartrige problem thanks very much and carry on the great work.
Thanks Again Mike
phil Says:
Thanks this is a real problem and you are the one genuine solution i’ve found. Thank you so very much.
Gary Says:
BRRILLLL!!! Thanks Mike, Just had to press the colour button twice thats the only difference for me.
This was the 3rd sequence I came across, and the only one that worked.
A million thanks.
claire Says:
Thanks – You just saved me from throwing my printer out the door.
Ian187 Says:
Mike, I got as far as re-installing the power lead and pressing the Reset button twice but there is nothing in the display window at all, just the yellow alarm lamp flashing 5 times. When you reboot the E5 comes back aaaaargh!
marwijn Says:
..this is helpful, tnx mike… :)
how about if I install a botomless ink on my printer, would it be possible to disable the ink level sensor? tnx again..
marwijn
Mags Says:
Cheers. That solved the problem, a great help.
thx Says:
thx again mate solved the problem nice
Umabalan Says:
The solution just doesn’t work on my Canon Pixms MP150.
I followed until Setp 7 : Press Power button twice, but the printer didn’t print anything.
Neverthele, I continued until final step. Got a notification in monitor that printer’s catridge has been replaced. However, I still could not print.
Kindly Advice.
Paul Says:
Hi Mike,
I am an EE and spent 30 years designing military computers and Telecom computers, until they made me retire 5 years ago. I don’t think I’m a dummy and I have worked on teams designing the electronics for some printers (NOT Canon) but this whole process has had me so frustrated that I wrote Canon and told them if they did not have a solution for me I would pitch this @^%*&%*()(**&% MP150 off the roof and would NEVER buy another Canon product. This is kind of cutting my own nose off though because I really want a Canon Rebel EOS 12 MP camera. Oh well, Nikon makes some nice ones too. They have not answered and I have been fighting this for almost 3 days now so I started looking for a way to get to the roof until I ran across your write up.
I want to thank you greatly for this information. I figure you must have done a lot of work for Canon at some time.
I followed your procedure and got the same results as Gary said in his post on 23 February. When I pressed the Color button the 2nd time it printed the test sheet and the rest just worked. When I powered back up the Yellow alert light for the Black ink was off and it printed like it should.
You are one of the true hero’s for the struggling Canon MP printer users. I was really looking forward to seeing this sucker hit the pavement from the roof though.
Paul
The Uncarved Block
Sebastopol, California USA
Jack Says:
Reset and working again
many thanks Jack
sarah Says:
hi thanks got the printer working with using your instructions but the only problem is now i it wont let print from my laptop i have installed all the cds, can you help please thank you
Abhishek Says:
Hi Mike,
Could you please tell me, how to use mp140 scanner without installing cartridges?
ink cartridges Says:
ink cartridges…
[...]How To Reset Ink Level On Canon Pixma MP140/MP150 | Mike Southby[...]…
graham hirst Says:
downloaded your info to re-set ink levels on my canon pixma 140.followed it through easily and ink levels showed full. thanks for publishing the info. kind regards graham.
marco Says:
I tried with canon 490 , followed each steps….but I don’t even get the 0 on the monitor? any suggestion?
Martin B Says:
Tried the original version but nowt worked.
Tried other variants – still E5 flashes
Think its out of the window with the 140.
Can anyone promote a printer scanner which takes cheapo refills.
Perhaps there’s a career for someone who can be bothered to collate such data.
MB
John Says:
I have tried over and over with new off market cartridges all I get is E 2 can you think of a reset that will reset I’m baffled
Javier Says:
Hi.
I wanted to tell you that after buying a non-official Pelikan cartridge that the printer refused to recognize, I’ve managed to make it work using your method and now the printer works perfectly.
Thank you very much.
George R Says:
Hi There
I would like to say a HUGE Thank you. Am just starting up a new Work From Home Business & bought a new MX420. I followed the above instructions, as there is nothing online for my Printer, etc as yet, to reset the settings for the ink. In the end, tried Dave W pressing the Stop button for 10 seconds, then the Coulour Print. Works a TREAT! Thank you! I can stop stressing about it now :)
Alison C Says:
For all those folk this didn’t work for – try taking out the ink cartridges & repeating Mike’s instructions. After a about 10 repeats with the cartridges in & only getting the yellow flashing triangle, I took both ‘dodgy’ cartridges out, switched off and started from the beginning. This time I did get the ’0′ & was able to follow each step, re-inserting cartridges right at the end as per instructions.
Next problem was it gave me an E16 but this can be overridden by holding down the reset button for 5 secs (Canon instructions).
After 2 weeks out of action my printer is now functioning again! Good luck everyone & ‘Cheers’ Mike!
Rosie Says:
Thank you so much, you’re am absolute gem.
I’ve been constantly pulling my hair out about this.
Carolbong Says:
I’ve searched the internet for days to try to reset my Canon Mp140 but all attempts at resetting failed, yes failed, until I found you!
Incredible, just one attempt and succeeded!
Thank you so much.
Jake Says:
wow mike, you are a genious thank you for sharing looked for ages to sort this out for my girlfriends grandmother! you’re a life saver.
vasago Says:
Hello,mike and happy new year! I wanted to ask you if it is the same process on the pixma mx-410. Or i should do something different…thanks in advance for your help Mike!
Mike Says:
Hey, I’m afraid I would not know about the MX-410 withot having one to investigate with; normally though, most manufacturers use very similar ‘steps’ to achieve the same outcome on different models so if the above does not work, experiment with slightly different steps and you may get lucky. Sorry I can’t help more.
Eleanor Says:
Hey there Mike
I googled looking for an answer to why my ink was not recognised not realising that because it wasnt canon that is why.
Solved the problem for me
Thanks
Mark Says:
Can i bring it round to you to sort out :O/
matthew Says:
Thx
You really helped me!
Iman Says:
Hi Guys,
Guys with MX410, do not need to reset their printer after refilling.
if it does not print the received fax docs automatically, you have to go to FAX Setting (from menu)
choose “Auto print setting” and then choose “print when out of ink” afterward and set it to print*, its default value is “Dont print” !!!
the only annoying thing is that the replacement warning is blinking on your LCD! but every things works fine,
Thanks mike for giving me this opportunity to share my experience
Love you all,
Iman
elaine brennan Says:
Mike was wonderin could you help me. The yellow triangle is flashing and nothing appearing on the dial for me to change from 1 to 0. Thanks
