Canon Pixma MP610 printhead issue

Hello all -

My trusty Canon MP610 had been working perfectly until a few weeks ago when I got the dreaded UO52 "The type of print head is incorrect" message. Reseating the printhead did not solve the problem. I found a Canadian seller on Ebay who had what he claimed was a new QY6-0067 printhead (I confirmed with him directly that this was a genuine Canon printhead, and was new rather than refurbished). The printhead arrived sealed in a foil bag, in a plain unmarked grey cardboard tray/box that also contained a set of what appeared to new, sealed Canon CLI cartridges. In other words, the packaging suggested that this was a printhead that had originally been shipped with a new printer.

Anyway, the printer recognized the printhead and it seems to work fine except for two issues. The first is that the first cyan strip when I print a test page is not completely uniform: it has a distinct checkerboard appearance. I've uploaded both the entire test page and a higher resolution scan of the cyan strip. Any idea what could be causing this? I've done a complete printhead alignment.

The second issue is that when printing black text at standard speed, a single line on an otherwise correctly-printed page will show a vertical alignment problem - there's a slight notch in the "l" and "1" characters, for instance. Again, the entire page will print correctly, except for one line that shows this problem. I've uploaded an image of such a misaligned line (the central line is showing the slight alignment issue).

I use OEM Canon cartridges refilled with ink from Precision Colors, using the "German method". Computer is a 2014 Mac Mini running Mac OS Sierra 10.12.6

Thanks in advance for any help!

Thanks so much for taking a look. I was concerned about the way the first cyan strip printed with alternating bands, since years ago I had something similar happen with the magenta stripe in the nozzle check test of an IP5000 printhead, and it signaled the beginnings of an electrical problem with that printhead. I just printed out an extended nozzle check (in service mode) from the MP 610, and it looks like this:


There's a vertical gap in the first cyan and green patterns that I don't think should be there:


I'm really not looking for trouble and am happy to be told the printhead is fine, but does this pattern look normal?

Thanks,
Zack

zack23 said:

I was concerned about the way the first cyan strip printed with alternating bands

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Is this the way the printed image looks or is it only in your scanned or photographed image uploaded to the forum? All horizontal swaths of color should be uniform in color with no ink missing within the swath.

Scanner / compression artifact can cause the banding you see in the Cyan swath of the nozzle check image you posted. If the banding is actually seen on the printed page then that is trouble, probably of the irreparable kind.

"Normal" MP610 nozzle check here. Note there is slight banding in the Cyan.

zack23 said:

There's a vertical gap in the first cyan and green patterns

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Does a follow up "regular" nozzle check display this new vertical missing ink anomaly? This could be due to a dirty Timing Strip. See below for how to clean the timing strip.

zack23 said:

when printing black text at standard speed, a single line on an otherwise correctly-printed page will show a vertical alignment problem - there's a slight notch in the "l" and "1" characters, for instance.

Click to expand...

Does this occur consistently, come and go, or only once? Does the defect always happen in the same location on the page? Have you tried a different brand of paper?

Sometimes misaligned text can be due to a print head needing to be aligned (try automatic first and then manual if no benefit) OR a dirty Timing Strip which needs to be cleaned. Maybe this is a paper feed issue.

Hello Stratman -

Thank you for your reply. The uploaded scan of the nozzle check is an accurate representation of what the printed test looks like - the "banding" in the first cyan stripe is in the print, it is NOT an artifact of the scanning or compression.

I cleaned the timing strip as you recommended, then printed the extended nozzle check and it was perfect - no gaps in the cyan or green blocks. I then did a manual head alignment, reprinted the extended nozzle check, and the gap in the cyan and green blocks was back, exactly as in the extended nozzle check I uploaded in my second post above. I then tried recleaning the timing strip, did another extended nozzle check, and got the following. Note that the first cyan block and the green block still show the vertical gap, second cyan block is missing entirely, and the third cyan block is not printing properly:


I then tried doing a normal head cleaning, reprinted the extended nozzle check, and got the following. This one is different than any of the previous extended nozzle checks - the second cyan block is now present, but note the very regular banding in the first cyan and the green blocks:


I'm puzzled why the results of the extended nozzle check keep changing. Any thoughts about how I should proceed?

Thanks again,
Zack

My first thought is why did you do a manual alignment - anything at all! - when you received a perfect extended nozzle check after cleaning the timing strip? I thought you said you weren't looking for trouble!

Check again for dirty timing strip. Do an automatic alignment. Is your Cyan cartridge functioning properly? If in question - loss of Cyan swaths on the extended nozzle check - then either flush and refill or use a new Cyan cartridge. Print a nozzle check, scan and crop then post here.

Sadly I think the defects in the nozzle check prints are caused by electronic defects in the print head that seem to get worse with time/usage.

Less than perfect alignment of the print head will cause problems with registration and maybe broken straight lines. I think the alignment did not damage the print head. I think the stressing of cyan during printing the alignment patterns worsened the damage in the print head.

Sadly I think the claimed to be new and unused print head was a used and defective print head that was cleaned and repackaged.

Hard to say with 100% certainty if the "new" print head was "new" or counterfeit refurbished. It may be the original U052 error represented a defective logic assay board as well. Service Manuals mentioning this error code recommend replacing both the print head and the logic assay board.

An oldie but a goodie I found from @PeterBJ

Ugly extended nozzle check

stratman said:

My first thought is why did you do a manual alignment - anything at all! - when you received a perfect extended nozzle check after cleaning the timing strip? I thought you said you weren't looking for trouble!

Click to expand...

Ha! I tried the alignment because the standard nozzle check was still showing that odd banding pattern in the first cyan stripe.

Check again for dirty timing strip. Do an automatic alignment. Is your Cyan cartridge functioning properly? If in question - loss of Cyan swaths on the extended nozzle check - then either flush and refill or use a new Cyan cartridge. Print a nozzle check, scan and crop then post here.

Click to expand...

I cleaned the timing strip again, did the automatic alignment, and put in a brand new OEM Canon cartridge. I ran an extended nozzle check and it looks exactly like the first one that I ran (shown in my Thursday Sept. 13 post above). Here's a scan of the top half of the newest nozzle check:


I'm inclined to think at this point that there's an electrical flaw in the printhead (possibly resulting, as PeterBJ suggested, from a flaw in the logic board). I was pursuing this issue in such detail because I was wondering if I should try and return the printhead to the ebay seller. However, I've now put sufficient use on it that I don't think a return request would be reasonable, plus there's a chance that the printhead was originally fine and was damaged by my logic board. Some casual photo printing seems to look OK, so I'll just continue using this printhead until/unless I encounter serious problems, at which point I'll just have to get a new printer.

Thanks to everyone for their help!
Zack