Canon iP4600: refilled cartridges stop working

[Lestrad]

Hi. I've been doing a little refilling for my iP4600 using both the Durchstich and top-fill methods. (By the way, let me say thanks to all of you here for the excellent help and advice I've gotten.) Both methods seemed to be working fine. But then first the Magenta, then the Yellow cardtridges seem to have just stopped working. I get the impression that no ink is being delivered from the cartridges at all. All "colors" print in shades of blue (black text prints fine). I've tried putting in freshly refilled cartridges that were carefully rinsed and then dried prior to filling, and of course reset using the Redsetter. I've also tried with commerical cartridges. But no go. Blues only.

Can anybody help? Could this be a problem with the electronics or the print head?

TIA for any help
Les

 

[PeterBJ]

If the magenta and yellow cartridge failed gradually, I think it is a cartridge problem. But if they failed abruptly like a switch was turned off, it could be an electronic failure of the print head. See this thread: http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=8586

I have experienced problems with the PGI-520/CLI-521 cartridges, that were refilled using the German method. The top filling method might be better suited for these cartridges I think. If the printer problem is caused by the cartridges, I think I can find some good links to threads about the problem.

You can check the ink flow from the cartridges by first taking a working cartridge, hold it over a sink and blow gently into the vent to exit a few drops of ink. Note that you don't need to blow very hard into the vent to exit ink. A cartridge with ink flow problems needs you to blow much harder to exit ink.

Another test is to touch a piece of kitchen paper to the ink outlet of a working cartridge and note how fast ink wicks into the paper. Then do the same test with the suspect cartridge.

Hopefully it is a cartridge problem and not a print head causing the trouble.

 

[Lestrad]

Well, I've tried the blow test and the cartridges seem fine. Would the problem be with the print head itself, or with the electronics behind it? I guess it's RIP in either case. This print head already has a problem - the wide black nozzle is partially blocked or burnt out. No amount of cleaning and flushing have been able to clear it. But I could still print fine - slowly - until the color cartridges went out.

I can get an iP4950 for less than a new print head would cost, and it seems I can use my 520/521 cartridges with it. Can you confirm that and/or make recommendations?

Thanks very much!
Les

 

[PeterBJ]

Having checked Canon website, I can confirm that the iP4950 uses the opaque 525/526 cartridges, that can successfully be replaced with the windowed 520/521 cartridges with the 525/526 chips attached.

But before giving up on the iP4600 you could try to clean the print head. In Europe a good print head cleaner is the Ajax window cleaner with ammonia from Colgate-Palmolive. It is the version in the white cylindrical plastic bottle with blue and red text that is recommended.

 

[Lestrad]

But before giving up on the iP4600 you could try to clean the print head. In Europe a good print head cleaner is the Ajax window cleaner with ammonia from Colgate-Palmolive. It is the version in the white cylindrical plastic bottle with blue and red text that is recommended.

I've tried everything to clean that print head including soaking it in alcohol and filling cartridges full of cleaning fluid and "printing" with it until no trace of ink was left. So as much as I believe in recycling and salvaging, it looks like I'll be junking the iP4600 and buying two iP4950s - one to put on the shelf for a few months from now... ;O)

 

[The Hat]

You seem to have tried most things to get your printer back working again but not all,
in the mean time dont print anything with your printer till you have resolved your ink problem.

A lot will depend on how long your poor ink flow problem has been going on and how much printing you have do
since this ink problem started as to whether you have damaged your pint head or not.

There is one test you can still try, power on the printer raise the top lid to allow the print head to move to the centre of the carriageway,
then to your far right there are two parking pads that your print head sits on (Called the purge unit).

Squirt some water onto both of them to form a pool and watch to see if the water remains there
or drains off (Use a Flash light to see if it helps).

If the water soaks away in a minute or so then the tubing on the back of your purge pads has come loose and fallen off,
that will necessitate pulling the printer apart to fix.

If the water remains there after a minute then close the lid and run a normal head clean and then check the pads again
if the pads are still very wet then your purge unit is probabily all bunged up with old dry ink,
that will need clearing and cleaning to get it working again. (You may have to pull the printer apart too)

The Pixma 4950 and 3600 will work with your excising cartridges provided that
you swap the chips over and get yourself a new 525 chip resetter only for the 4950..

 

[Lestrad]

Thanks. As I said, this does not seem to be a poor ink flow problem. The two colors seem to have stopped working altogether while the black and cyan work fine. As for the tubing, I had the printer apart not long ago and the tubing seemed fine. On that occasion I thoroughly cleaned the purge unit, though I did not go so far as to remove and clean the sanitary pads.

It just doesn't make sense to me that poor purging would cause two cartridges to function at zero and the others at 100%, nor for them to suddenly quit.

Les

 

[The Hat]

Thanks. As I said, this does not seem to be a poor ink flow problem.
It just doesn't make sense to me that poor purging would cause two cartridges to function at zero and the others at 100%, nor for them to suddenly quit.

Les

Quite right but we still try to cover every angle because nobody likes to lose a print head.

Had you posted a nozzle check at the same time as your thread then we would have seen that
and gave you the bad new right away, which you sort of knew all ready I reckon..

 

[PeterBJ]

Lestrad, could you please describe the methods and materials used in cleaning the printhead? Maybe someone might have other suggestions?

In my opinion concentrated alcohol, whether ispropyl alcohol or denatured ethyl alcohol is not a good print head cleaner, as the ink is water based, and a strong alcohol can act as a desiccant, actually making things worse. It is much better to use a window cleaner with ammonia, or a special mixture, "Pharmacists cleaning solution", link here: http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=38818#p38818 , note this solution contains isopropyl alcohol, but only 20%.

 

[Lestrad]

Thanks to both of you. Yes, I used the alcohol before discovering this group and all the info on it. I did try to soak only the nozzles themselves, though. I then blew as much air through the nozzles as I could. Later I did as I described above - using the cleaner (Universal-Dsenreiniger) from go-in-webshop to fill a 520 PGBK cartridge and then printing a totally black page (a lower-case bold letter 'L' repeated to fill a page and then brought together by condensing the character and line spacings) on the Plain Paper - Fast setting until the cartridge was empty. I did that at least twice (kept running the same five or six sheets of paper through - by the end they were just about soaking wet). The middle section of the wide, pigment-black nozzle still seems to be clogged.

But as I said, I was able to print fine - slow but fine - by setting the driver to "Matte photo paper" and using Standard or High quality. But then suddenly the Magenta and Yellow just quit working. I just refilled all the cartridges and ran two cleanings, then a Deep Cleaning. Then I ran a nozzle check. Here it is:

[/img]

Vivid reds and brilliant yellows, eh?

I just checked on the price of a print head and the lowest I could find is 69, VAT not included (well, it's only 19.6% here). A new iP4950 is under 100, VAT included. I just ordered two. If anybody wants any spare parts from an iP4600, just say the word. I also have a 520/521 Re(d)setter I won't be using...

Thanks again for your help, and in general to all of you for making this a great forum. I'm so glad I discovered yall. Sticking that needle in that little hole is some of the most fun I've had standing up.

Les