Canon pixma IP5000 - no cyan at all

[embguy]

The ink level did not go down at all for my photo black because the rubber washer did not have a good seal.

Since your cyan ink level go down but not as fast as the other color, I think you have flow problem due to the cartridge as dougsewell pointed out. Test it with a new Canon OEM cyan cartridge.

At the mean time, if you can dilute the cyan ink by putting a few drops of Windex on the exit port of your current cyan cartridge. You should get a near perfect nozzle check after a clean cycle.

 

[ghwellsjr]

My problem is exactly identical to QE2's in every detail except that I am using refilled Canon cartridges. I have already put another print head into the problem MP780 with the same cartridges that I was previously using and the printer had no problem, so I know the problem is not in the cartridges.

Another important fact is that when I remove the cyan cartridge, there is ink on the inlet screen so I know that ink is getting to it (same as QE2). I'm beginning to wonder if the problem is a clog inside the print head before the nozzles. I have made a cleaning cartridge using Windex but that hasn't helped. My next step is to make a cleaning cartridge using a print head cleaning solution.

Note to QE2: the nozzle check is supposed to be light. It is made up of individual dots from the nozzles.

 

[ghwellsjr]

Finally--success!! Horay!!

OK, here's what I did. First, as noted in the previous post, I made another cleaning cartridge using a print head cleaning solution I bought on line but this was the same as the Windex cleaning cartridge. It would get some of the nozzle check to work if I put Windex on the screen on the print head and on the purge pads but then it would fade away to printing nothing at all on successive nozzle checks.

So, thinking that the problem was a clog inside the print head but before the nozzles, I removed all the cartridges, put Windex on all the screens, did a cleaning (by turning the power off and on) and finishing with a nozzle check. I repeated until nothing was printed for the entire nozzle check. Then I removed the print head, remembering to put the locking lever back down so it wouldn't get smashed if the printer decided to return the carriage back to its park position. Then I got a short piece of rubber tubing that was large enough to fit over the screen on the print head and large enough to fit over the end of my syringe (without the needle). Actually, it was a little too large so nothing stayed in place, I had to hold everything together. I put Windex in the syringe and pumped it in and out of the print head while the print head was resting on paper towels. I made sure to not tilt the print head so that any liquid would flow to the back side of the print head where the electronics are. After several attempts at forcing Windex in and out of the print head, I blotted up all the loose liquids with towels and Q-tips and used canned air to blow away any remaining liquid, including under all the electronics surrounding the print head. I put the print head back in the printer, put in all the cartridges with the cleaning cartridge in the Cyan position, put Windex on the purge pads and did a nozzle check (which automatically does a cleaning cycle because the print head had been removed). Now the cyan part of the nozzle check is printing a faint solid block (because the ink is diluted in the cleaning solution). Finally, I installed the normal cyan cartridge, did a cleaning cycle and several nozzle checks, all of which looked good. I copied a page of blue and it looked good. More nozzle checks looked good. I'll try again tomorrow and report.

 

[jackson]

<snip>
I removed all the cartridges, put Windex on all the screens, did a cleaning (by turning the power off and on) and finishing with a nozzle check.

I don't have the nerve to try - can you initiate a nozzle check with no carts in the printer.

 

[ghwellsjr]

You can on a Canon printer that uses BCI cartridges, in other words, the ones that don't have chips in them. The printer cannot tell if there are any cartridges in the printer, it can only tell when there is a cartridge with an empty reservoir in it.

 

[QE2]

Hello Again,
OK, I purchased a genuine Canon cyan cartridge, peeled back the plastic (just the little front tab comes off exposing the beginning of the air channel) placed it in, and no luck. After a cleaning I got a tiny streak of cyan but subsequent nozzle checks revealed nothing. Even after a deep cleaning.
I read the recent advice of ghwellsjr + all others (thank you).
So I'm a bit confused about what the next step should be. Should I try to empty out a cyan cartridge (how to do that?) and make a cleaning cartridge by putting windex in (where/how would I inject this?), pop it into the cyan slot and see if it cleans the thing out? By running nozzle checks (or cleaning cycles)
If this is the way to go, should I wait to buy a special print head cleaning solution or is windex ok?
or
should I (as per ghwellsjr) "removed all the cartridges, put Windex on all the screens, did a cleaning (by turning the power off and on) and finishing with a nozzle check. I repeated until nothing was printed for the entire nozzle check."
then would I put all the cartridges in again, or try to remove the print head.
I'm a bit scared about this part. I saw some instructions somewhere but couldn't even begin to follow them because I couldn't figure out how to get the print head to come out...
And it also seemed like the print head is attached to a ribbon that's a bit too short???

I'm also a bit confused between the terminology of print head - it's the whole assembly, not the cartridge, correct?
I was confused by:
"Finally, I installed the normal cyan print head, did a cleaning cycle and several nozzle checks, all of which looked good. I copied a page of blue and it looked good. More nozzle checks looked good. I'll try again tomorrow and report.
I assume you (ghwellsjr) meant the normal cyan cartridge?

Thanks again for all of the advice!

 

[leo8088]

After trying all those suggested to you and since there is no real improvement it is reasonable to assume that the print head Cyan channel is clogged. It usually caused by ink dried up in the nozzles, followed by more printing without ink flowing through the nozzles. The heaters cooked the dried ink further and hardened it to form a stubborn clog.

That leaves the print head only one way to unclog, soak it with Ammonia/water solution. You have to take the print head out of the printer and do it outside of the printer. It is a risky business to engage in. Many people succeeded, including myself, but some people reported dead print head at the end. It is believed that it is the electronics that gets wet during the soaking procedure that caused it to malfunction. There is no way the electronics can be kept 100% dry during the procedure. All you can do is to keep it from getting wet and make sure it is dry before reinstalling it back to the printer for testing.

Soak the print head in a shallow dish of the Ammonia/water solution. It should be about only 1/4" to 1/2" deep only. Use a syringe to pour the same solution from the ink inlet of the print head too. The ink inlet is the small round circle that the ink cartridge feeds ink through it to the print head down below. Normally a unclogged inlet will allow the solution to flow into it in a couple of minutes. A clogged inlet will not. Rather the solution will dry up. It takes a few more minutes so you can tell if it is dried up or it actually flew into it.

The time it takes for such a soaking can be anywhere from one hour to over a day and over night. You will need to keep feeding the inlet with the solution about once per half an hour. There are more tricks you can apply while soaking the print head. But hopefully you don't need all that. I have recovered a few times and saved clogged print heads this way.

Some people will tell you not to remove the print head to unclog it. But if you have tried many things without removing it then it is time to do it the other way. Remember the risk but in the worst case you just need to buy a new print head. It is not worse than having a clogged print head that will not unclog anyway.

 

[QE2]

Thank you for the reply and advice.

I know there's a thread/instructions for removing the print head somewhere (if anyone has/knows of the link, I'd appreciate it).

But I'm still not clear of the very first steps to take the print head out of my IP5000.
Seems like the instructions assume that one knows how to do this. Obviously, it doesn't work just to yank on it...

I know to flip up the little lever/plate that holds in the cartridges, then take the cartridges out. Then I'm not sure...
Anyone know if there's a little switch or something - what to grab onto and which way to pull or rotate it?
I'm sorry to be so naive about this...

Any suggestions or instructions would be much appreciated.
Thanks once again.

 

[ghwellsjr]

I'm also a bit confused between the terminology of print head - it's the whole assembly, not the cartridge, correct?
I was confused by:
"Finally, I installed the normal cyan print head, did a cleaning cycle and several nozzle checks, all of which looked good. I copied a page of blue and it looked good. More nozzle checks looked good. I'll try again tomorrow and report.
I assume you (ghwellsjr) meant the normal cyan cartridge?

Yes, I made a mistake in calling the cyan cartridge a cyan print head. I'll go back and fix that.

The print assembly that goes back and forth consists of three parts: first is the carriage which has the flat ribbon cables attached. This part cannot be removed from the printer. Second is the print head which can easily be removed after you remove the third part which is all of the cartridges.

You remove the print head by lifting the grey lever at the right side of the assembly. (This is the only time you want to lift this lever, don't lift it to remove the cartridges.) Then you grab the black handle that is also on the right side of the assembly and gently pull it toward you and up and out. It is very important to put the grey lever back down because at some point, the printer may decide to park the print assembly and you don't want to get that lever smashed.

 

[ghwellsjr]

QE2, I have been convinced that you have had exactly the same problem that I had and that I solved.

It is not a problem with the purge unit because we have verified that Windex on the purge pads is sucked away.

It is not clogged nozzles because you and I both have seen the nozzle check show the correct nozzle pattern, it just doesn't last long.

It is not a problem with ink flow from the cartridge because we can see ink on the print head inlet screen after doing a cleaning and nozzle check.

It is not an air leak in the seal because we have swapped them and the problem didn't go to the other color.

I could not fix the problem with cleaning cartridges filled first with Windex and then filled with a print head cleaning solution. So I wouldn't recommend that you do this.

My conclusion is that it was a clog internal to the print head after the screen on the inlet port and before the nozzles.

There may be more than one way to fix this problem. I fixed it by first draining the ink from the print head (by removing all the cartridges and repeatedly doing cleanings and nozzle checks. Then I removed the print head from the carriage and forced Windex from a syringe through a rubber tube to the cyan inlet screen on the print head. After forcing Windex in, I pulled on the plunger of the syringe to suck the Windex back out. I repeated forcing the Windex in and out. Eventually I could see the Windex coming out of the nozzles.

Admittedly, this was a touchy process. I always kept the print head upright or tilted toward me so that ink and Windex would not drip into the electronics. Of course I had several layers of paper towels under the print head to protect the nozzles and soak up the ink and dirty Windex. When I decided that the obstruction might be cleared, I soaked a paper towel with Windex and wiped the print head clean. I used canned air to dry everything.

Since I didn't submerge the print head in any liquid, I didn't feel there was much risk of a liquid getting on the electronics or remaining there after blowing on it. If you are concerned, after you dry it as much as possible, you should let the print head sit in a warm area for a couple days before you put it back in the printer.

After I returned the print head to the carriage and loaded all the cartridges, I did a cleaning and nozzle check and everything was back to normal.

That's the way I did it. There may be other ways to accomplish the same thing such as what leo8088 suggests above. Other people submerge the entire print head in Windex or other solvent. Some people run warm (not hot) tap water all over the print head. Whatever you do, make sure the print head is thoroughly dry before returning it to the printer.

If any of these instructions are unclear, please ask before proceeding, we want to hear a success story, not a disaster.

Good luck and let us know what you did and the outcome.