Canon Pixma Ip5000 - Printhead Died?

[MP640]

Thanks Peter. I did find some but they are all around USD 130. The printer isn't worth spending that amount of money. Bad luck...

 

[turbguy]

s.

Canon print heads can fail for no apparent reason, especially if old, and the Pixma 5000 is not exactly a new printer.

While I agree that Canon printheads "fail" in several different obvious symptoms, there is indeed a reason for each and every failure.

Typically they all seem show loss of massive numbers of nozzles suddenly, as if a single common failure point (such as a single microelectronic circuit path) is to blame.

I wonder how much effort Canon has placed into investigating these failures, and what their response has been.

 

[Emulator]

@turbguy I see you are back, have a nice holiday? What is the temperature today?

 

[Emulator]

Using bits from an old printer, I wonder if it would be possible to devise a test rig, to check out printheads electrically. It would need an understanding of the circuitry, which I suspect being digital, rather than analogue, would be an almost impossible task, each printer being a different configuration. No, I think I will stop wondering.

I haven't dared put a test meter near mine yet.

 

[PeterBJ]

I remember that long time ago there was one or more threads about the pinout and function of Canon print heads. The service manual for Pixma 4200 has an appendix with the pinout for the print head carriage, page 3-7 and 3-8. link here: http://telefon.unas.cz/cannon/Canon-20Servicemanual_ip4200.pdf

This table shows that 3 supply voltages are used for the print head. 3.3 V for logic circuitry, and 16 V and 24 V for the power and heater circuitry. The print head is a specialized IC, and the number of nozzles and the number of data lines show that multiplexing is involved in sending data to the print head. I think that electronic print head failures might be failures in the demultiplexing circuitry.

I'm not an electronics pro, but an old timer radio amateur, and my electronics knowledge is mostly about analog circuits. I think a multimeter and an oscilloscope will reveal nothing. Sadly you cannot check a print head by measuring resistances, but sophisticated digital test equipment will be needed, I think.

 

[turbguy]

@turbguy I see you are back, have a nice holiday? What is the temperature today?

T'was -15 degrees F the night I arrived back home. Nothing special...

 

[turbguy]

I remember that long time ago there was one or more threads about the pinout and function of Canon print heads. The service manual for Pixma 4200 has an appendix with the pinout for the print head carriage, page 3-7 and 3-8. link here: http://telefon.unas.cz/cannon/Canon-20Servicemanual_ip4200.pdf

This table shows that 3 supply voltages are used for the print head. 3.3 V for logic circuitry, and 16 V and 24 V for the power and heater circuitry. The print head is a specialized IC, and the number of nozzles and the number of data lines show that multiplexing is involved in sending data to the print head. I think that electronic print head failures might be failures in the demultiplexing circuitry.

I'm not an electronics pro, but an old timer radio amateur, and my electronics knowledge is mostly about analog circuits. I think a multimeter and an oscilloscope will reveal nothing. Sadly you cannot check a print head by measuring resistances, but sophisticated digital test equipment will be needed, I think.

Interesting that this pinout appears to show only 14 (by my count) pins are used to supply data for actual nozzle selection...and there are 7 nozzle check patterns on the service test print. All of this implies that the data being fed to the head are nozzle "addresses" in code rather than a simple multiplexing scheme. Probably a very sophisticated system.

Additionally the rated print head life ("volume") is shown as only 400 A4 sized photos.....seems too small to me...

 

[Emulator]

T'was -15 degrees F the night I arrived back home. Nothing special...

That's about twice as cold as we have ever had it here, I can remember it went to -12C (10F I think) on one occasion, but we suffer from an excess of water, with considerable flooding of low lying areas at the moment.

I think that electronic print head failures might be failures in the demultiplexing circuitry. ..............
Sadly you cannot check a print head by measuring resistances, but sophisticated digital test equipment will be needed, I think.

Yes, I am sure you are right, but if it is not always ink related and the 9000 II failures are in the intermediate circuitry it implies Canon printhead quality could be better. Have there been failures in the Pro100 printheads yet, I can't say I have noticed any? How similar are they?

I have just had a look through the service manual you referenced, it is interesting reading. As turbguy says 400 A4 photos is a short printhead life, less than life of an ink cartridge! Must be an error.

 

[PeterBJ]

I think some cases of electronic print head failure could be caused by cleaning the print head outside the printer. With CMOS logic the voltage on the inputs must never go above V+ or below V-. With 16 V and 24 V conductors near 3.3 V conductors, it wouldn't take much moisture to allow a leakage current that causes the input voltage of the logic to go way above 3.3 V, as CMOS inputs are high impedance.

I think cartridge leakage could also ruin a print head. I have had a bad 3rd party cartridge leak in a Pixma 4200. The ink wetted the underside of the print head and crept under the foil between some conductors. After that incident some yellow nozzles were missing, with the yellow band in the nozzle check divided horizontally along the middle with the lower half being much lighter than the upper half.

I have noticed a thread about print head failure, and one post had photos of the undersides of the old and new print head. This old print head also showed that ink had crept under the foil between some conductors. I will try to search for that thread.

turbguy said:
Additionally the rated print head life ("volume") is shown as only 400 A4 sized photos.....seems too small to me...

I think the life expectancy is much better, it is stated as 18,000 pages or 5 years. The 18,000 pages are specified as a mixture of various prints, and the 400 A4 photos are only a part of the total number of pages. If the printer were used for A4 photos only, I think the number would be higher than 400 but lower than 18,000 as much more ink is laid down onto a photo than onto a plain paper document.

 

[Emulator]

Overvoltage is very important. I remember reading Canon advice that the printhead should not be removed, once fitted. It would only take shuffling about on the carpet to build up a static charge that would destroy the logic circuitry, if the contacts were touched. We should wear a static discharging wrist lead when handling them as you would when handling memory or micro processors.