Canon ip5000 printing too much green

[spatzi]

Printer is 8 months old. I just finished a batch of 80 photograghs last night, no problems, they all look great. Today, I tried a couple more and found they had a strong green tint. I went through all the maintenance checks: clean, clean, deep clean. Did a nozzle check. The color bars on the chart are correct, going downwards from 1)solid black grid 2) blue 3) light blue 4) pink 5) light pink 6) yellow 7) black

But it's the small squares on the left of the nozzle pattern bars that are off. The 3EBK and the 6BK are black, the rest (6C, 6C, 6M, 6M, 6Y) are all varying shades of green, 3 dark, 2 light. These are supposed to be shades of black, correct? That's what it looks like in the 'comparison' screen that pops up after you finish the nozzle check. Why would I have correct colors showing on the right of the print out, but the squares on the left are green?

I can't figure out why I'm getting heavily green tinted photos when all the inks show up correctly in the nozzle check. I even took the head out and cleaned off any excess I could find around the contacts. Does this indicate not enough black is getting in the photo, or not enough magenta?

Can it be that the printer head is fried already, after 8 months of moderate use? I will call Canon tomorrow to try for a replacement, but the problem is I need the printer now, because I work with it. I can't afford to wait 2 weeks until they ship me a new one. I can see that I'll be forced to buy yet another printer. My previous Canon was an i640, and it also lasted for about a year before the head was shot. I'm really getting tired of having to replace printers so often.

I am using the costco ink and printing on glossy paper, two sided paper, and plain paper. Makes no difference. The heavy green tint is on all of them. Please remember, I never had the green tint until today, and I've been using the costco ink refill bottles for 7 months.

 

[drc023]

It doesn't seem to me that you have a defective print head. Even though the nozzle check appears to show the correct colors, it looks like one of the cartridges (most likely magenta) may have an ink flow problem. Have you tried using different ink tanks?

 

[ip4000]

Your magent is not printing correctly. I had a similar problem with an ip4000.

- remove all the carts
- remove the printhead and take a look at the bottom. Is there ink at the slits where ink should come out. Probably is. Clean it with soft tissue. You may apply a little solvent.
- put everything back and print the test sheet

My ip4000 cleared that way.

 

[spatzi]

Yes, I took out the print head, cleaned all the ink off the contacts. Applied cleaner. Then I cleaned, deep cleaned, nozzle check still shows green sqaures. I still get the green tint on photos. I think the head has had it. I'm not surprised. My last canon printer also didn't last for more than a year. I called canon today and they are sending a new print head. At least I was still covered by the warranty.

I have also tried different magenta tanks. No difference.

 

[hpnetserver]

I don't think your printhead is defective either. Give it a good bath in water. Pour water from the top of the ink intakes as well. You need to somehow let water gets into the printhead from the top down and clears the clog inside.

 

[spatzi]

Thanks for your tips, but I have also tried washing out the print head from top to bottom with warm water. Lot of ink came out, all colors. Did a nozzle check. Still the exact same green squares on the left of the check pattern. Please note that the numbers
read:

3eBK
6C
6C
6M
6M
6Y
6BK

Only the 3eBK is 'black'. The rest of the numbers/letters are the same shade of light olive green. It seems to indicate a lack of black in these sqaures, not magenta. The squares starting from 6C to 6Y are all dark green/light green.

 

[hpnetserver]

What Costco ink is it? Is it Canon OEM ink sold by Costco or the IMS refill ink sold by Costco? If you are USIng IMS ink that may be the problem. IMS did not work right for me.

 

[spatzi]

It's the costco IMS ink refill kit. (except for the black, which is Canon original) They have worked fine for two years. (except for the mess and work involved in refilling) I'm going to buy some oem fresh tanks today, about $4 each, and try those. Does anyone have a recommendation for cheap refill tanks available in Canada?

 

[hpnetserver]

You probably have a clog in the printhead. It's not the ink to blame for the clog. When you printed 80 full page photos continuously you might have exhausted the ink cartridge to a point that had reduced ink flow to a very low level. It was so low that some air mixed with ink was drawn into the printhead. When you stopped printing the air in the printhead caused the ink to dry out and left a blockage in the printhead. It probably did not completely blcok the ink fow yet. But it has caused a significant color shift. The printhead needs a more effective mothod to clear the clog. Using OEM cartridges at this point probably will not fix it. I'll leave that to the experts of this forum to help you. Good luck.

 

[ip4000]

Magenta and cyan look a bit "scratchy" to me. The colorbars should be pretty solid color. When that happens to my ip4000 magenta a greenish cash will result. I've succeeded unclogging with flushing the printhead under warm tap water.