Canon’s ink cartridges hit the news in October when the company was sued for disabling other functions such as scanning when its printers ran out of ink. Once again, the Canon cartridge is in the news today, although this time for a different reason.
The company announced in a support post that a global shortage of chips has changed the way Canon manufactures its inks. The company has chosen not to use chips at this time as a temporary measure, and will therefore manufacture chip-free ink cartridges for its printers and other various multifunction devices. The flake-free inks will go into circulation around February. As this is a temporary measure, Canon expects the return of regular ink cartridges in the future.
The company writes:
The global shortage of semiconductor chips affects the supply of many electronic devices and some accessories. Affected accessories include toner cartridge for Canon commercial printers and multifunction devices (MFDs).
[..] To ensure our customers never miss a print, Canon has innovated around chip shortages to make sure we can still supply our toner cartridges. Canon has started manufacturing chipless toner cartridges. While there will be some inevitable, albeit minor, changes to our customers’ experience, you will still be able to print as normal.
The chip inside the toner helps to identify Original Canon products-Alerts users on usage levels, among other things. However, chip-free toner should not affect the printing process itself.
In a Canon support post, the company detailed how to handle error prompts due to devices with inks less than chips. The post also lists all affected toner products.
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