9000 II maintenance

[Smile]

I recommend this method too. It is safe and easy to use. I got my tubes from china. Saved some heads like this. Just do not forget to add the cleaning liquid to the tubes !

It is good idea to reuse the cleaning liquid, once you filter it using syringe filter to be safe.

 

[Roy Sletcher]

A technique for gently flushing a print head was suggested by someone else in the past (afraid I can't remember who), using 8 pieces of about 150mm (6 inches) of 4.5mm bore plastic tube. If you remove the rubber sealing washers around the input filters, you can push the tube onto each stub. Depending upon the actual tube diameter you may have to wrap PVC electricians tape around the base of the tube to tighten the grip of the seal and ensure it is leak free.

Fill each tube with window cleaner liquid and you can soon see which channels are flowing freely and which are not. Some of the dyes seem to have components which rise to the top.

The pressure is not more than 1/4 psi. If you use significantly higher pressures from a syringe for example, you may displace the (silicone? rubber) seals, between the base of the tube labyrinth and the top of the ceramic? print head plate, leading to cross colour contamination between channels. If this happens the only solution is to take the head apart and reposition the gasket.

As can be seen the PM channel, 3rd from left, is now flowing freely as it had three column flushes before the others.

View attachment 2503

Thanks for the info. This is an excellent tip. Will probably work with other Canon Dye printers as well. Will certainly look into getting some lengths of transparent tubing for my pro-100.

RS

 

[Emulator]

@opurora asks
Hi, how did you manage to clean the head parking pads so thoroughly? It's so hard to get into that tight space. Thanks.

Bring the print head to the middle by opening the lid and then turn off the power at the wall plug. Push the print head out of the way to gain access to the pads.

With a torch and a dropper (or syringe or a teaspoon) put a couple of cc of window cleaning fluid onto each parking pad and leave for ten minutes. It may or may not soak away in that time. Blot the pads with some kitchen paper towel.

Repeat the process a second time or more until you have clean pads. I use Lidl W5 window cleaning liquid.

When finished move the print head back to the centre and switch the power on. The print head will then execute a head clean and spoil your nice clean parking pads!

 

[Roy Sletcher]

Whilst on Maintenance, but with a slightly different emphasis.

How many head cleans and deep cleans could a Pro9000 or pro100 sustain before it will need waste cleaning and counter resetting?

I ask because over the past couple of years I have run a few of both on my Pro100 and would like to gauge at what point it is likely to reach that "point of no return".

I know there has been talk about being able to clean the waste pads on these printers. Has anything come of this?

Enquiring minds would like to know!

RS

 

[Emulator]

I think @The Hat is the best person to answer that. Ultimately you have to take the printer apart.

You can run one of PeterBJ's service programs which will tell you what percentage you have used.

 

[The Hat]

There are many answers to your question Roy but here are my takes on it.

If you routinely run your 9000 normally and don’t change your cartridges one at a time as recommended by Canon but change them in groups (Recommend by Nifty members) then you have nothing to worry about.

The ink absorber pads will last for years and will not need cleaning/changing at all, and may even last the lifetime of the printer, and you run an EPROM test print every six months to check % levels.

But if you’re the type to get paranoid and reckon that daily cleaning will keep your printer in perfect working order and repeatedly turn it on/off excessively each day then two things are bound to happen.

One is the ink absorber pads will definitely fill prematurely and the purge unit may pack in altogether from excessive use and best of all, your ink supplier will definitely love all the extra inks that you are purchasing.

I never even mentioned the print head in all of this, I have found rightly or wrongly that these large multi cartridge print heads can fail for no reason whatsoever with electrical failure in one or more of its coloured nozzles. (Over heating or design fault ?)

By doing any of the above things excessively it will put extra strain on the whole machine but mainly when trouble starts it’s the print head that suffers the most and it’s where you usually see the first signs of trouble from poor output

Does this go anyway to answering some of your questions ?

 

[Smile]

I wonder why manufacturers of desktop printers (everyone of them) do not clean the printer heads properly. I mean same way as eco solvent printers! Cleaning with spaying cleaning fuild ! How ingenious right?

We do this all ourselves (with windex etc. when problems happens) when in fact printer manufacturer needs to do it routinely. Prevention of problem is always cheaper. Think about all saved ink this would save.

But OEM ink is crazy expensive, print heads also.

 

[The Hat]

The Canon printers do have a good system for cleaning their print heads, it’s good for the printer and good for Canon but it’s bad for us when it wastes so much of our expensive inks, thankfully there’s good reasonable 3rd party inks widely available..

 

[Smile]

The Canon printers do have a good system for cleaning their print heads, it’s good for the printer and good for Canon but it’s bad for us when it wastes so much of our expensive inks, thankfully there’s good reasonable 3rd party inks widely available..

Still windex like cleaner cleans better than any ink I tried.

 

[The Hat]

Still windex like cleaner cleans better than any ink I tried.

Yes that is perfectly true but unfortunately it is far safer to allow the printer do the cleaning than it is for someone to remover the print head and clean it externally, most print heads die from incorrect cleaning and handling..