Canon Pixma MG5150 color print quality decline

[Łukasz]

Short "steaming" works (1-5 minutes), but it is most usable for printheads with blocked nozzles (randomly blocked nozzles or starving patterns) rather than internal clog.

Martin is also right, same results can be because of electric failure over one ink channel (He got it in QY6-0075 printhead).

Water by self isn't harmful, but can result in short-circuit condition inside printhead (not only over green plate, also on brown plate to ribbon connection). Short-circuit is hard to detect by inexperienced Refiller. When short-circuit becomes visible as "Error B200" or "Error U052" it is too late (most times).

Ł.

 

[palombian]

The windowed PGI-520/CLI-521 cartridges are much more refill friendly than the opaque PGI-520/CLI-521 cartridges, so this tip by The Hat is highly recommended. But the opaque cartridges can also be refilled using the top fill method, if you use a wooden cocktail stick as a dipstick to gauge when the vent should be sealed. It is much more cumbersome though. Here are the two cartridge types. They are identical except for the windows and the chips:

You can get empty PGI-520/CLI-521 cartridges from Octoink UK here and here, or maybe find some at Ebay or Amazon.

Seeing the ink can be handy indeed.
But with a scale - as we are used to with PGI-9 cartridges - you know how much ink you have to inject.
Let 's say the cartridge weighs 12g, you prepare a syringe with 8ml ink.
As I observed, even the 525/526 cartridges have a transparent part near the vent hole where you can see the ink level rising before it overflows.

 

[Aleksandar84]

Better late than never. Here is the test page. Couldnt fit the whole pic so extracted the colors only. if needed will post the rest of the page. This is after washing the head and two cycles of print head cleaning. To me it seems bad..

 

[palombian]

Better late than never. Here is the test page. Couldnt fit the whole pic so extracted the colors only. if needed will post the rest of the page. This is after washing the head and two cycles of print head cleaning. To me it seems bad..
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Green ink ?
Maybe your yellow cartridge is contaminated with cyan.

But nozzles don't look so bad.

 

[PeterBJ]

Green ink ?
Maybe your yellow cartridge is contaminated with cyan....

In the extended nozzle check for some Canon printer models the yellow nozzle check is printed on top of cyan, to make it more clearly visible. Defects in yellow will show as cyan stripes in the grid, here is the extended nozzle check from the service manual. Even if it says MP550, the image is from the MP560 service manual.

It looks like the print head cleaning was successful, how does the regular nozzle check from user mode look now? It is not necessary to upload the rest of the extended nozzle check, the test stripes are the essential.

 

[palombian]

In the extended nozzle check for some Canon printer models the yellow nozzle check is printed on top of cyan, to make it more clearly visible. Defects in yellow will show as cyan stripes in the grid, here is the extended nozzle check from the service manual. Even if it says MP550, the image is from the MP560 service manual.
....

Oops, we learn every day !

 

[Smile]

I wonder why Canon does not use the same kind of grid prints as EPSON does, way more clear to spot problems. Somehow they use something like it in service mode only. This lead me to suspicions it is done on purpose to make average user not have their print heads replaced during warranty periods.

 

[Łukasz]

Nozzle print is OK, someone here is the lucky man!

To me it looks like Magenta ink is just too much diluted

No other problems, dye BK have only one single nozzle slightly skewed.

But there is one, ultimate test - swapping Magenta and Cyan ink tank positions (but with swapping its chips in order to make printer think that ink tanks are in their right places).

In such ink tank configuration, in nozzle print, "C" stripes should be printed with Magenta and "M" strips should be printed with Cyan.

If Magenta ink is too much diluted, then "C" stripes (printed with Magenta) should be too light, and "M" stripes should be OK in terms of intensity (but of course printed with Cyan).

Very first nozzle prints may be cross-contaminated, resulting in grayish/uneven "M" and "C" patterns.

Ł.

 

[Łukasz]

The reason for screen-like patterns on user-mode nozzle check may be that they can pick up some ink flow problems (not only starving, sometimes some too hight viscosity can be picked up).

Please note, that some users forget to remove air vent seal, or sometimes ink tank position leads to air being swallowed instead of ink, leading to starving. And starving leads to damaged printhead ("Error U052" or "Error B200").

Grid-like nozzle check can pick up distortion, which is very common on Black dye ink (and Yellow), and is probably caused by overheating condition on certain ink channel.

Ł.

 

[Aleksandar84]

The regular print nozzle check pattern is exactly the way it was before the cleaning. So if its up to the ink, the easiest way is to buy an original canon magenta and see if the prints are better, right? Probably this is just a bad batch of ink...right?