Canon MP990 printing light on all color

[poloce]

ok, I purge the PGB cartridge and refill it with ink, still comes out gray.

 

[The Hat]

poloce after about 6 deep clean and nozzle check, my black now looks lighter than yesterday...... this is after I put a few drops of windex in cartridge and nozzle

When I said do a head clean I didnt mean a deep clean as it only wastes more ink,
but I dont think that your ink is worth saving anyway.

As your purge unit is working properly then the only thing to look at again is your cartridges,
they might not be delivering enough ink to the print head.

Youll need to purge one of your cartridges for now and refill it with your current ink
just to see if you get a better printout, try black or magenta.

Remember only to print nozzle checks while you are having this problem and nothing else.
There is possibly another underline problem as to why all of your colours are fading at the same time and the black not printing at all.

You could have an electric problem in the print head or the purge unit is malfunctioning.
The printer is only twelve months old and its a bit early for the print head or the purge unit to be failing this early unless the ink
youre using has prematurely killed off both or worse the build quality of these newer printers has taking a nose dive.

Try cleaning a cartridge first and see how you get on with that or maybe ghwellsjr might have a better solution to this problem..

As I went to post you came back with your latest reply so.
I would put some Windex on the pads of your purge unit and do a head clean followed
with a nozzle check and check for ant improvements..

 

[poloce]

thanks, but if you see my last reply,

I did do a purge of the cartridge after the head cleaning method you told me, and still prints out light gray color from black cartridge.

I will try to do another head clean with windex and do a nozzle check, but I doult that will do anything at this point since I done the head clean before.

I am suspecting the sponge may not be useable anymore to cause this problem. My new cartridge will be here in a few days I will try that on and see if it helps.

As far as print head, I don't think it's worth replacing since it cost so much and might as well buy a new printer, the purge unit work for sure I follow the instruction from ghwellsjr.

I don't quite understand what you mean by "There is possibly another underline problem as to why all of your colours are fading at the same time and the black not printing at all."

My black does print, just looks gray, and all other color may seem light but I can't really tell since I have nothing to compare to.

Would you say if I can confirm all color prints light it may be a printer head problem and if it's just the black PGB then it's a cartridge problam?
(Take in account of that I purge cartidge, clean head with both warm water and windex method, checking purge unit on printer still functional) I can't seem to rule out any other cause but the above 2 reasons???

Thanks for the help

Polo

 

[Tin Ho]

This could be a clogging problem. I had a similar problem on yellow of an i6000d many years ago. Initially the yellow was very saturated. But after refilling it for a few weeks the yellow got lighter and lighter. The nozzle check showed no streaking. But the yellow was distinctly not as saturated as before. It was too late to save it when I realized that the print head was clogged. The ink was a cheap Chinese ink. It worked well for a few weeks then it destroyed the print head. It was a unforgettable experience.

Are you sure all your colors are lighter now? I don't think clogging would happen to all channels all at a same time. You did say PGBK getting lighter. That seems to be a clogging but all colors getting clogged at the same time? Not sure if that would happen. I guess it could.

 

[poloce]

well, I been refilling for over a year now, as you may already know, MP990 purge a lot itself, so it does use a lot of ink and if one clogged up, the rest may be gone soon. Black was the obvious one, the others I can't even tell anymore. I tried all method of cleaning the printer head, and if it is the problem(If the problem remains after I put a new OEM cartridge in), then it's got to be the printhead, whether it's clog or faulty electronic. It is simply not cost effective to replace it since a new one cost like 150 and I have to buy new inks anyway.

I am open to suggestions now, out of ideas

 

[poloce]

btw, I had similar problem using Atlantic ink before, but after I replace the cartridge, it worked fine, color came out the same on my old Canon ip5200. That's why I oder new OEM ink and giving it one last try since warm water+windex did not clean the nozzle means I am out of luck.

I am not sure if lower quality ink actually clog up the sponge and effect it's disipation of ink to cause the light ink.

 

[The Hat]

poloce I am not sure if lower quality ink actually clog up the sponge and effect it's disipation of ink to cause the light ink.

Ink starvation in a cartridge has a very high kill rate indeed.
Believe me poor (cheapo) inks can cause much more problems than that, as it takes a bit of time
to do all sorts of damage and is responsible for the premature death of a lot of printers.

Good quality inks costs Nothing but cheap inks costs Everything..

 

[poloce]

put in the new OEM cartridge, prints fine on black now, semes like the bad ink destory the cartridge, but I use Atlantic ink before and the same thing happen before as I recall ?!

 

[The Hat]

poloce
Congratulations on solving your own ink flow problems.
The next thing youll have to do is to purge the remaining cartridges
but only after you get your new inks from the suppliers we mentioned in an earlier thread.

Dont be tempted to put the new ink into the cartridges before purging them because these inks probably wont mix well
at all and youd be right back where you started from again (poor colours).

You can however mix the new inks with OEM inks without the need to purge the cartridge first.
Happy printing..

 

[poloce]

I am thinking about using the rest of bad ink on other color cartridge until they die or just get new cartridge for the new ink. Since purging the PGBK did not work, I am afraid purging the other color for the new ink will be a waste of new ink, what do you think?