Canon I550 Cfs Problems

[WES]

I have been using a CFS since February. I love it. I print anything and everything. About a month ago the cyan stopped printing. Checking it out, I found the plastic tubing blocked with a thickened cyan ink in the form of a plug approximately 3\4 long. Searching this great forum I found MIXING DIFFERENT BRANDS OF INK. Great! I have not problem with that. That is very possible. I replaced the ink, inserted a new cartridge, cleaned the head, and continued printing. I thought no more about it. (There had been some cross contamination about this time and now that has cleared up. I have no idea if it was related to this.) Then this week the yellow stopped printing. Checking it out, the yellow tubing was blocked. I removed the plug, and with it a lot of sludge. The sludge would drop onto the paper towel and pile up. The sludge dried as a green spot and the ink dried a dark brown. Up to this point I was getting a yellow that was just a little less yellow than normal. The bottom of the 2-ounce ink container had a 1\4 of sludge. For the feed tube, inside the ink container, I used a brass tube. The yellow ink had etched about 1\2 of the brass tube, approximately where the ink level would be. I can visually see a difference in the outside diameter of the brass tube. The brass tubes in the 3 other colors have no etching. I will be looking to replace the brass tubing. WOW! Aint life exciting!
Thank you for this very informative forum.

WES

 

[Nifty]

That's amazing! Thanks much for the post and the pictures.

I can't believe that your nozzles didn't completely plug up way before your tubing did. Did you end up with any nozzle problems, or did the sponge in your carts hopefully filter much of this out?

Do you think the sludge was due to mixing inks and/or the ink reacting with the brass tubing? If you believe it is possible that mixing different brands of inks could be a cause PLEASE provide us with the ink and cartridge suppliers / manufacturers.

Thanks again!

 

[fotofreek]

I think the green residue speaks to the probability of interaction with and corrosion of the brass feed tubes. Oxides of copper, a large component of brass, are green.

 

[WES]

I am using ATLASCOPY yellow ink. I bought this ink before I built the CFS. On their web they talk about one type of their yellow ink that will create a sludge if used in PVC tubing. I preformed their little test and the yellow ink that I am using does not coagulate and form a sludge. FOTOFREEK feels the green comes from the brass tube and I agree. I feel the etching occurred because of an electrolysis that was set up between the ink and the brass and the emancipated brass, mixing with the ink, in turn formed the sludge. But hey, what do I know!

WES

 

[WES]

I did have a blockage in the printhead. I used the hot water-soak to dissolve the blockage. I used the hot water out of the tap and then I finished up by using the hot water I have for my teawater. I have the printhead clean and working again. The sponge material filtered out much of the foreign matter and that probably kept me from having a much more serious problem. The sponge was a brown color. The ink that I poured onto the paper towel (before the sponge) dried a dark brown. The ink that printed out onto the paper (after the sponge) printed out as yellow. The yellow was a little darker yellow than the original yellow. The other 3 tubes are not etched, but the sponge material in the cyan, magenta, and black cartridges are darker than they should be. So, to wrap everything up. I do not think the problem had anything to do with mixing of inks. (I don't remember if I even had a second brand of yellow.) I think the metal leaching into the ink is creating all of my problems and I am in the process of replacing the 3 remaining metal tubes with plastic tubes and thank you very much for maintaining this grand forum.

WES

 

[Nifty]

Wes, Thanks for all the great info again! Are you going to be tossing out those cartridges? I'd probably err on the side of caution and say yes, but if you want an adventure you can use Grandad's great cartridge purging / cleaning method here:

http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=311

 

[WES]

Isn't GrandPa great! I have no problem in throwing out the bad cartridges. But! After reading GrandPa's great post, I think I will try the hot flush and see how things turnout. I am in the process of replacing all of my metal tubes with plastic tubes. I have acquired some nylon 10/32 machine screws and I will be using them. No more metal for me. One of GrandPa's yellow cartridges showed staining from a metal screw. All 4 of my metal tubes were discolored, but only the yellow was etched (badly etched.) After reading the information concerning one type of yellow from Colorbat, I think there is something in the yellow that attacks the metal that the other colors don't have. But, what do I know!
Thanks for this forum!
WES