Canon i550

[embguy]

I have a Canon i550 printer since 2003. I refilled my cartridges since day 1. It has serve me well until a year ago. I set my PC to print in draft as default. Sometime, I manually set it to print "standard" or "high" quality. The print is perfect in draft quality. But there is random black smear mark when I print in "standard" or "high" quality. There is no color smear mark. I think the smear is due to more ink coming out of the print head in "standard" or "high" quality mode.

I am new to printer maintenance. Your help will be appreciated.
1. How I go about to take the print head off the printer to clean it?
2. What precaution that I should take in cleaning the print head?
3. Is there any chance that the smear is due to the refill ink?

My waste ink tank is 73.8% fill according to service mode printout. I usually do not run the head cleaning. I noticed that my printer is cleaning the print head when it wakes up from sleep mode. Does the ink evaporation keep the waste ink tank dry?

 

[Manuchau]

Welcome to this forum...you will find knowledgeable people here willing to help. I'll start the ball rolling. To remove your printhead, just lift up the top of the printer, as if you were going to replace a cartridge. When the printhead moves to the middle and stops, take a close look at it.
You will see a lever on the right side, just above the printhead. Remove the cartridges, then lift the lever, and you should be able to lift out the printhead. Flip it upside down, and take a look at it carefully. Most likely it could use a gentle cleaning.

Is your refilled BCI-3 old..has it been refilled many times? Have you overfilled it, which can cause problems.
I have to leave for work at the moment, so I'll let others continue to help you. Do not be afraid to get into printer maintenance. You have a very good printer, and it is worth it learning some printer maintenance to keep it alive. Good luck!!

 

[embguy]

I had tried the lever on the right before. But I left the cartridges in. That was my problem. After taking out the cartridges, the print head comes out easily. It has lots of lints around the out edges. It was sort of caked on it after 6 years without any cleaning. I use Q-tip with rubbing alcohol to clean the edges making sure that I did not touch the print head.

The test print is better now. But it still have a few smears if I am really looking for them. It is almost perfect after a quick cleaning. I will clean it again tomorrow if I have more time. Thanks

 

[Manuchau]

You are welcome..remember..Do not overfill!! And, make sure you use Pigmented ink in the large BCI-3 blk, NOT the dye inks that are in the smaller, bci-6 colour cartridges...

The pigmented ink is more a permanent, as well as having higher viscosity, and it is what the BCI-3 was designed to use.

Well done with your foray into maintenance..a little goes a long way.

 

[embguy]

Yesterday quick clean does not fix the smear problem permanently.

I took the printer apart. Clean the the area around the waste ink pads. Clean the print head holder top and bottom. The smear is due to the lints on the underside of the print head holder. When printing in normal or high quality mode, more ink is on the paper and is not dried fast enough before the lints spread the ink as the print head moves across the rail.

The waste ink tank counter is 74.7. Soon, I will have to deal with waste tank full error. I should have fixed it before I put it back together. But I did not read the instruction until now.

http://www.druckerchannel.de/artikel.php?ID=1831&seite=1

According to this instructions, it is not a tank. It is multiple layers of absorbing material at the bottom of the iP4000 printer. Anyone knows what Canon uses for the i550 printer? Since the surface area of the absorbing material covers half of the bottom of iP4000, evaporation may take care of the overflow situation. Any comments.