Clogged Canon print head

[Metallo]

Hi guys,

I refer to my latest post #87, I have just noticed that my prints have problems again with black, basically printing is disappearing and there are ink stripes on the back of the sheet when it is out of the printer.

So, basically I changed the printhead and after a few days the problem is back, then I said myself, it must be the cartridge and Ishould try a new one, but I'd like to know from you the following:

You have two black cartridges, but I don't know which settings are triggered them to fire the ink.

1) For instance, if i only print b&w, which one is firing the ink?
2) Which one is used when printing in color?
3) Which one is used when printing in color with photo paper pro paper type?

IMHO, if there are ink stripes on the back of the sheet, it means that one of the cartridges is leaking and the ink spills out of the hole because it is coming out of the cartridge in excess, or am I missing something here?

Finally, I asked if there's anything I can do to prevent clogging if I'm away, say, for 3 weeks, can anybody answer this?

Thank you!
Alex

 

[hpnetserver]

You said: and there are ink stripes on the back of the sheet when it is out of the printer.

This looks to me the ink is leaking. If you have replaced the printhead and it still does the samething then it has to be the cartridge that is leaking. Did you refill the cartridge yourself? If you did you might have had too much ink in the sponge. Compress (squeeze) the ink tank from both sides to force some ink out. If the problem is indeed too much ink in the sponge this will fix it.

 

[websnail]

Well... Don't I feel a chump..

I've been relearning the expression "Pride go-eth before the fall" and boy did it go bump..

I've got three canons that use the iP4000 printhead and four printheads, two of which were more than a bit flakey... Well I decided in my wisdom to follow some of the advice and feedback provided on here for clearning them out but on reflection I should have done more reading and less action...

Net result I learned a few things I'd like to impart to folks.

1. Revising my earlier opinion, you really don't want to be taking apart the printhead to get at a clog unless you absolutely have to. If you do, you should really ensure that you don't leave the circuit board in place but as recommended by Grandad above, you should remove the lugs holding it in place so that you can detatch the ceramic block and circuit board without bending the electronic ribbon cable.

I didn't do this and subsequently I'm pretty sure I bent the ribbon cable to the point of breakage on one part.. net result: it no wanna print.


2. The cleaning fluid and patience are key in the head cleaning equation.. Leaving the head intact, use of 2 suitably sized pieces of tubing (that will fit over the ink ports) and cleaning fluid (I purchased stuff from MIS) and a lot of time will ultimately win through.


Beyond that I've pretty much used the two, now borked, printheads to practice my skills on and I'd recommend this approach to anyone else in a similar position.. It tends to help if you don't fubar something you need yesterday.. yes, like I did..

So, once again, thanks to all for the info shared.. You never stop learning..

 

[Unwired]

Related to getting the printhead unclogged, does anyone have any comments on the head cleaning solutions offered by various vendors. I found one on eBay

http://cgi.ebay.com/PRINTHEAD-CLEAN...ryZ16190QQssPageNameZWD1VQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

, but don't want to spend the money if this is just some rubbing alcohol with color added.

In the meanwhile, I have a printhead for a Canon i560 where the black will not print text properly. Looks like some jets on the top and bottom are plugged as only partial lines of text will print. This is still on the original OEM 3e Black cartridge, but then I don't print on the inkjet too often. I currently have it soaking in alcohol overnight to see if that helps.

If I can locate an ultrasonic cleaner, that might be the next step. I have not seen anyone else reference using that approach yet.

thx

 

[Grandad35]

Unwired,

Use the "Search" function with "ultrasonic". Specifically, read (http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=7421#p7421) before trying an ultrasonc cleaner.

 

[ghwellsjr]

I have used the cleaning solution from inkjetsaver.com a lot, not to clean heads, but to provide an "invisible ink" so that I could determine which inks were being used under different printing modes. I know that it will not hurt a print head. See this link for my experience with this cleaning solution for that purpose:

http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=1275

I also used this cleaning solution one time to successfully clear up a clogged 3eBK head, which lead me to believe it works well, but after the experience described in this link, for all I know, it may have cleared up on its own:

http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=1327

Now I find myself in the crazy position of wishing for a really bad head clog that won't clear up on its own so that I can try the cleaning solution to see how good it is.

 

[digitalartist71]

thought i'd slam this link in here for reference that may help somebody that THINKS the head is clogged:

http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=1239

and yes...I agree, seems the heads are quite good until you pull them apart...i bet they can almost be unclogged without taking apart. I took mine apart but was worthless after messing with it way to much...so just bought another one to start new. My purge unit was clogged due to buildup of cheap pigment black ink. if the head was clogged due also to that...cleaning solution may have been all I needed. Seems EXCESSIVE syringe force can also cause the rubber gasket to leak inside and make color(s) leak past it.

 

[surajpahuja]

i have a old printer canon bjc2100.
when i print the black ink is printin ok but the colour are not printing fine. the colours are printing in line format there is a particular spot on head which is blocked kindly guied me how to solve this problem.

 

[Leolund]

Thought I'd run this by you all before attempting a printhead disassembly and "intruisive cleaning". I've read much of this Canon forum and I'm wondering if I have an electrical issue based on a consistent, specific Print Nozzle Test Pattern. I have a Pixma iP6000D used very infrequently until recently. I noticed distinct lack of "red" in my prints so I ran a nozzle test patern. The upper 6M (Magenta) pattern only prints the lower half of the bar. Exactly the lower half while the upper half of the 6M bar remains clean white. I've run the deep cleaning utility multiple times and all other patterns print quite well. I've performed overnight soaks using alternately diethylene glycol and isopropyl alcohol. No change. Does this pattern indicate another underlying problem?

 

[Grandad35]

I have never seen the schematics for a Canon print head, but it is obvious that there aren't enough contacts on the back of the print head to allow for a separate signal for each nozzle. This means that Canon must be using some form of multiplexing to get all of the data to the print head. Since many of these printers have 256 nozzles (2^8) for each ink, it seems logical that the loss of a single address line could cause the loss of 1/2 of the nozzles. This seems to be a common failure mode, so it is possible that certain address or data lines are stressed more than others, making them more likely to fail.

See these posts for similar failure modes shown by others:
http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=12212#p12212
http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=12854#p12854

Note that we have never had this theory (that this nozzle pattern is caused by an electrical problem) either proved or disproved.