The global and ongoing chip crisis has led to higher prices and significantly longer delivery times for many products. Like everything in life, however, a chip crisis also has its good sides: Canon has to change the production of its printer cartridges.
Years ago Canon equipped its printer cartridges with tiny chips. Obviously, this was done in the interest of the customer, of course, in order to ensure that the printer functions better. In truth, Canon wanted to prevent the use of cartridges from other manufacturers, which were often significantly cheaper.
As Neowin reports, Canon is now proving itself in the crisis that it can work without these chips. You just leave them out. On its Australian side, the company has the following statement released:
The global shortage of semiconductor chips is affecting the supply of many electronic devices and some accessories. The accessories affected also include the toner cartridges for Canon business printers and multifunction devices (MFDs).
[..] To ensure our customers never miss a print, Canon has innovated around the chip shortage to ensure that we can keep delivering the toner cartridges. Canon has started manufacturing chipless toner cartridges. While there will be some inevitable but minor changes for our customers, you will still be able to print as normal.
Some functions such as the level indicator will no longer be available if cartridges without chips are used. In addition, Canon explains in this support article how to acknowledge or ignore corresponding error messages from the devices.
About the author
Martin Geuß
I’m Martin Geuss, and it is easy to see that I feel at home in the Windows world. For more than twelve years I’ve been letting the world participate in what goes through my head about Windows and other Microsoft products, and sometimes it’s even interesting. The most important motto of my work is: By me – for you!