Canon Pixma MP620

[barfl2]

I have been absent for some time largely due to the ill-health of myself and my wife but now improving slowly. Also since I took up only filling the same cart every time I got the yellow low ink sign I have had no problems until recently.

The Photo BK nozzle check looked pale and had a number of horizontal lines through it, then I lost both Magenta and PhotoBK all-together. Pulled print head and cleaned it the usual way small tray W5 window cleaner plus a couple of drops of Ammonia. plus I attached 2" high plastic tubes to the offending colours and syringed in cleaner. It ran straight through about 2/3 seconds so assumed the channels were not blocked.

Cleaned, dried, and re-inserted head nozzle print shows Magenta and all others fine but NO BK at all. Is this likely to be an electrical fault?

 

[The Hat]

@barfl2 I’m glad you and your wife are feeling a lot better now, nice to have you back with us.

Now the simple answer is yes the head is buggered, but never give up on the first try, it may be just a stubborn clog or a cart problem and it may not, so try the 2” plastic tube again a couple of times, also test the BK cart for ink flow, you might just get lucky..

 

[stratman]

Welcome back. Good to hear you and your wife are better now.

 

[barfl2]

Is it worth doing an eprom print out? only forgotten how to do it. The replacement BK cart was from Octoinkjet and I tested it dripped before installing it. When I bought this printer S/H from E-bay the listing stated not used for several weeks and no PGBK cart. I took a chance as bidding was very brisk for this printer.

On doing a nozzle check there was a couple of BGBK lines a smudge of yellow and nothing else so thought you have bought a dud. an e-mail to the seller established she had been using Tesco re-fills. I implored her not to do so with the high end Canon model she had bought, and if she could not afford genuine carts gave the names of a couple of reliable suppliers I had used in the past but NOT from E-bay.

Anyway, after the usual clean I had all the colours but only the first Magenta. I carried on using it and then had first the 2nd magenta and finally all 3. But perhaps the damage was already done by the previous owner which has now shown up.

Thanks for all kind comments much appreciated

 

[The Hat]

@barfl2, You can continue to use the printer quite successfully, and not worry about having the BK black not working.

Set your Media to Matte photo paper in the Windows Control Panel and save that setting, this will allow you to continue to print on all plain papers, and if you need to print a photo then set the Media paper to glossy in the photo Application you’re using and your sure to get a perfect picture, good luck and take care..

 

[palombian]

Indeed, BK can be missed as The Hat explained.

To avoid (further) electrical damage to the BK nozzles, and a possible death of the printhead, you could mask the contacts for the BK (there were some posts on this).
My son runs a printer this way for more than a year now.

 

[barfl2]

@barfl2, You can continue to use the printer quite successfully, and not worry about having the BK black not working.

Set your Media to Matte photo paper in the Windows Control Panel and save that setting, this will allow you to continue to print on all plain papers, and if you need to print a photo then set the Media paper to glossy in the photo Application you’re using and your sure to get a perfect picture, good luck and take care..

 

[barfl2]

I tried the matte photo setting you suggested to print out a 4 page energy bill. It was fine but terribly slow, is this typical?

With regard to a stubborn block as the cleaning fluid went through so quickly I assumed it could not be blocked? cart was blow tested before insertion. I would like any pin taping info. as suggested by Palombian

 

[PeterBJ]

I tried the matte photo setting you suggested to print out a 4 page energy bill. It was fine but terribly slow, is this typical?.....

Yes this is normal. In a Canon print head the length of the pigment black nozzle row is typically twice that of the photo black nozzle row, so using the pigment black prints twice as many millimetres per print head pass, so printing text with pigment black should be twice as fast as printing text with dye (photo) black.

 

[barfl2]

Sorry PeterBJ bit confused by your reply I merely set the paper type to matte photo as suggested by The Hat but the resulting output was very very slow. You seem to implying that using the Pigment will print twice as fast. As the PB seems to be inoperative I assumed that it would only use pigment ink only plus dye for any colour required in the printout.