banding/printhead failures? on multiple nearly new Canon iX6850

[frustratedprinter]

Hi all,

I’m at my wits end!
I recently bought 2 new iX6850’s to replace some older ones I have. I run a small business and print a lot of reasonably high quality A4 paper and I’ve always loved these printers.

However, the 2 new ones I have are really awful quality. I print self adhesive Photo Matt paper and print on High Quality from Adobe Illustrator. Usually the colour is saturated, flat and consistent however these new ones have awful banding that no amount of cleaning or aligning will get rid of. They also seem very light, like not enough ink is being put down.

I thought, maybe it's bad luck or I'm doing something wrong (despite having probably about 10 of these printers previously all printing 10-20k sheets before giving up the feed before the quality) So I caved and bought yet another 2 new iX6850 (I've got a business to run). less than 200 sheets in and I'm having the same issue on 1, I daren't open the second for fear of another £150 being wasted when I'm no closer to a solution.

They were bought from different places which makes it all the stranger.

After cleaning, deep cleaning, aligning, checking drivers, changing settings, paper, inks, program and even computer the results are consistently awful.

The print nozzle test is quite lined, very feint, but with multiple thin lighter lines I cannon improve at all.

After all the elimination on one of the initial 2 new ones I’m assuming it must be print head so I bought a new print head, same issue!!!. But these printers are new?! Have Canon started cutting costs with crappy parts? Or am I unlucky?

Has anyone else experienced the same?

 

[The Hat]

The first thing I’d suggest is to print your Illustrator file in Photoshop and see if you get the same results..
Post up a nozzle check too.. Please..

 

[frustratedprinter]

Thanks for the reply, this is the nozzle check for the most recent one. They all go a similar way. Worst affected seems to be Magenta and Black in all cases.
I don't use Ps but I've printed from Acrobat and Mac Preview with the same results.

I've attached a few examples too. These are printed on Matt Photo Paper/High Quality setting. It's so far from the results I'm used to getting with these printers. The purple daisy design shows expected result on the left and current result on the right. Same computer/file/settings/paper/ink etc. So washed out and 'thin' looking.

Bonus info: I'm not using AirPrint (i know about that issue) the driver is the newest one DL from Canon website.

 

[PeterBJ]

Are these printers really new? Did they come in sealed boxes and with printheads in sealed bags? The nozzle checks show partly clogged/misdirected nozzles, a sign of a worn printhead or damage caused by cartridges with ink feed problems. Are the cartridges new OEM Canon or ? A not very nice suspicion, but could the printers be new and the printheads old and worn?

 

[frustratedprinter]

Yes I’m sure of that. One came from Argos, the other 3 from Cartridge People across 2 orders. I use them regularly for toner and printers in the past so no reason not to trust them.

I first noticed banding on my 2 older (now in the tip) machines maybe about 6 weeks/ 2 months ago. Thought it must be them coming to the end of their life and because it’s a busy time of year for me I decided to just bite the bullet and replace.

Had the Argos one first then a few days later the first of the Cartridge People ones. Within maybe 500ish sheets (if that) I started to notice the banding, contacted Canon who had me try all sorts of stuff and then blamed Apple.

I reluctantly bought a new print head for one (genuine Canon from a U.K. supplier) and it didn’t take long before the same thing happened again. Eventually after ruling out everything else I blamed some compatible inks I’d not used before. Binned all the inks and spoke to the print head supplier about the issue. They suggested I washed the head and tried again, if it’s still bad they will take it back for testing. (I’m sending that off tomorrow). Their Canon contact suggested it looked like Ink starvation.

So I opened the first of my 2 most recent Cartridge People printers. Decided I definitely wouldn’t use the most recent compatible ink incase it was that and I’d be super careful with everything. I used the Canon inks that came with it, the results were……acceptable. I’ve printed 200-300 sheets from that one now and the banding started with the canon cartridges. When the magenta and yellow ran out I replaced them with trusted compatibles that I’ve used very successfully for years, this didn’t improve or make anything worse.

Like I said in my previous post, I’ve had so many of these printers over the past 5ish years I’ve lost count, tens of thousands of sheets printed. I’d literally take them out of the box, use my compatible ink from the first sheet and never had an issue. The feed would gunk up before anything else failed because I print so much adhesive paper that it eventually leaves a sticky residue on the mechanism.

I usually print on ‘Matt Photo Paper / High Quality’ and set the colours to ‘light’ in the print preferences because the saturation of ‘normal’ was much heavier and darker than I liked for the majority of what I was printing. This is what makes it all the more obvious now, I’m printing everything on ‘normal’ and it looks so washed out.

For a while I thought it was Ventura messing with the settings because this is a known issue but I’ve ruled that out by printing via my laptop which is still running Monterey. I get the same result from both.

So I’m assuming it’s hardwear. But why now? And why every machine within such a short space of time? After the ink starvation comment I’ve been doing much more research into that. It makes sense in terms of the results, just doesn’t explain why it’s happening suddenly out of the blue. I’ve made sure all the cartridges I’m using have good ink saturation on the exposed sponge pad, and I’ve done the poking with a paperclip/syringe (as seen on an old post on here) to make sure the air flow is clear and it’s improved it ever so slightly on the newest machine, less striping although I wouldn’t say the saturation is as strong as I would expect from the settings. I tried a new magenta Canon cartridge and compatible and had comparable results with both on the handful of sheets I printed.

So I’m thinking it must be the ink starvation thing?? But how/why is this happening suddenly. Could software cause this? A dodgy instruction somewhere along the line? The USB cable? I’m clutching at straws! The only thing I haven’t tried yet is setting the printer to Quiet mode to help with overheating.

 

[PeterBJ]

Sadly I think the compatible cartridges did the damage. Most compatible cartridges come from China and you know nothing about the quality of the cartridges and the inks in them. The quality of the ink may change without warning which is what I think happened as the cartridges have been used successfully but suddenly started causing problems with more than one printer.

It looks like Cartridgepeople offer a lifetime printer guarantee, So time for a claim that they pay the new printheads?

New Canon OEM cartridges are of course the best. They won't damage the printer and the inks have a good fade resistance. They are also very expensive.

Second best is refilling the OEM cartridges with a high quality refill ink and use a resetter to make the cartridge look like new to the printer.

Using compatible prefilled cartridges is a gamble. They might be OK and they might be junk, And price and quality does not always match.

After market refillable cartridges with ARC chips also can cause problems. They often suffer from ink starvation or ink leakage and the chips come out of sync with the ink remaining in the cartridges so you risk printing with an empty cartridge which quickly can ruin the print head.

 

[frustratedprinter]

I've just logged in to update and you've just replied, thanks.

Cartridge People will only do the guarantee if you use their inks unfortunately. Ive already been in touch about the first failed one from them and they told me to speak to Canon.

Usually I would be inclined to agree but this most recent banding/starvation started with Canon cartridges, and these compatibles are used by a friend too who prints the same volumes as me on the same printers with no issues so I'm not convinced these are to blame on this occasion. I've had the problem across 5 printers now with 2 brands of compatibles, and canon inks, and both brands of compatibles have not been used in all the affected printers.

I decided to pursue the ink starvation route. Yesterday evening on the newest machine (<300 sheets) i made sure all ink pads were fully saturated, ran a clean and nozzle check and got a not-too-bad result. Not perfect but 99% there.

I printed some pink heavy designs and it got rid of the banding. This result was consistent across canon and compatible ink. This morning I printed the same design and it's banding again WTF! So i took out the magenta and swapped it for a new one with a very saturated ink pad at the contact point with the print head. Reprinted...issue solved.

So it's magenta ink starvation, it must be. But why is it happening? Ive attached a photo of the sponge pad of the cartridge i removed, this looks there isn't enough ink on there to me? i guess all i can do for now is be very aware of this and careful to check regularly to make sure the pads are properly saturated.


The other photo shows the design I printed, top was first print of the day, bottom is with the new cartridge with the fully saturated sponge. No other changes between them, no cleaning etc.

 

[PeterBJ]

I also think the magenta cartridge is causing the ink starvation. You were lucky that the new printheads have not been damaged yet. The ink outlet clearly is not saturated. Maybe another brand of cartridge is better? You could give it a try. But keep an eye on the print quality and stop printing at the first sign of ink starvation.

As you are selling your prints I suggest to use Canon OEM cartridges. The Canon inks have a much better fading resistance than after market inks and the Cartridges are a much higher quality than the after market cartridges.

 

[frustratedprinter]

Thanks, I'll have to keep an eye on the outlet saturation and just keep trying to work out what the problem is. I'll try other cartridges but this same issue happened with 2 compatible brands and Canon OEM so I'm at a loss as to why that is.

I'm not selling prints as such, it's planner stickers, so while quality is a consideration to a point it's not as critical as a print for hanging on the wall for fading etc because they aren't open to light and the cost of OEM cartridges does not make good financial sense for this type of thing sadly otherwise I would.

 

[The Hat]

I would go along with PeterBJ, because I also reckon your ruining the print heads with compatible inks and carts, yes I know you have used them before without issues, but that was then and this is now..

All of these newer Canon model printers have issues with compatible inks, so unless your prepared to use only OEM ink/carts then the same thing will keep on happening, your last resort is to try a pigment ink printer..

The only thing I haven’t tried yet is setting the printer to Quiet mode to help with overheating.

That would help enormously...