Canon i9900 alignment problem

[Grandad35]

The new print head fixed your cyan problem in the nozzle check, so it was necessary even if it wasn't related to your alignment question.

My i9900 gives exactly the same alignment check pattern as you posted - only A/B/D/E/G/J are shown. A/B/D/E/G appear to be magenta/red/green/cyan/black printed in one direction only (as indicated on the display), and that J is also black, but printed bi-directionally (again as indicated on the display). My guess is that Y/PM/PC are too light to be used for this test, so they are not printed and an average for the other colors is used for these 3 colors.

After entering the 6 alignment values, a second alignment page is printed, but it looks nothing like the one that you show - mine looks like this:

My printer is more than 6 years old, and it is my guess that Canon changed the alignment software in later versions. The images posted by The Hat are different from both of mine. Were they from your i9950 or your 9500-II?

In any case, everything is probably OK with your alignment printouts.

 

[The Hat]

Grandad35
Mine were from the i9950 and I am using the Microsoft 64 bit drivers on Win 7.

 

[sherlocc]

Finally!!! thank you - Grandad35!!!

First of all, I have no problem replacing the print head as it cleaned up the nozzle check problem. I just didn't see what the nozzle check pattern had to do with the missing alignment segments.

The question that I have continued to ask was the missing alignment segments.

The Print alignment runs to completion without error with the new print head. And the second alignment pattern looks exactly like the one displayed by Grandad35. I was not going to complicate things at this point by displaying this very strange pattern. But now I can say that 2 of us are experiencing the same thing.

By the way, the green in the fishmonger's coat is a little brighter,but that is the only change I can see with the new print head.

Thank you, I am now satisfied.

 

[Grandad35]

Several years ago, I noticed that when I tried a head alignment procedure when the cyan nozzles were partially clogged that the procedure failed after the first row or two of blocks were printed. After restoring the proper cyan ink flow, the alignment procedure worked properly. Your old print head would only print about 75% of the desired amount of cyan, and the resulting block may not have been dark enough for the printer's internal detector to see the block properly; you may have encountered the same problem as I saw when the cyan wasn't printing properly. In fact, if the printer only uses the bottom half of the nozzles to print these blocks, the block would only be 50% as dark.

As you may have noticed, when the second page prints, the paper advances and retracts numerous times. It is my guess that there is a hidden sensor on the print head carriage that can sense the presence of dark ink patches and that the alignment procedure prints a block, then moves the paper back and forth looking for its position. If the sensor doesn't get a clean signal (from a light patch), the printer apparently aborts the procedure.

 

[billcotter]

Sherlocc -

The i9900 comes with a default setting to do a first alignment pass manually, then a second pass automatically. You can only change the settings for some columns in that mode.

To be able to change all of the settings you need to make a change in the printer setup via the maintenance screen.

1) Open the printer maintenance sceen (select printer, then properties, then maintenance
2) Click on Custom Settings
3) Check the box for Align Heads Manually
4) Click Send. It will then write to the printer memory.
5) Now try the head alignment. You should now see all of the columns and be able to adjust them.

I hope that helps. I'm going crazy trying to clear up a banding problem myself, and as soon as I can post images here I'll be back hoping someone has the answer...

Bill