Clogged Canon print head

[Nifty]

Hind sight is always 20/20, especially if you are busy and optimistic. I just don't print as much as I use to and notice that as my printer sits, especially with the head we've had, I inevitably get clogs. Usually they just go away on their own. Sometimes I have to run a cleaning cycle. Well, what happens is I see a "clog" wait a couple days, see it is still there, and run a cleaning cycle. If it still isn't fixed I need to find the time to dive in and investigate / resolve the problem. Unfortunately I can't always find the time to do so... by that time the wife and kids have printed a few times.

Knock wood, I've not yet had a clog I can't get out. Some become more stubborn than others, and sometimes I realize it is just an issue with the cartridge... but in the end I have not had any perm. problems.

 

[Tin Ho]

I do not have such luck to successfully unclog every clogged print head. It's more like 50/50. The ones that I unclogged successfully were discovered early. Clogged print heads are hard to come by. When a print head is clogged it is an opportunity to experiment. That makes it not very scientific to make any conclusion on anything. Unclogging clogged print heads remains as a mystery to me.

 

[fixup]

My son's printer stopped working this morning, so I went to a junk store (GoodWill) and found a Canon S530D for few dollars. When I got home to test it, there was absolutely no black while colors were fine. First I put the head into 91% rubbing alcohol as suggested by some websites, and used bottled compressed air, no go. Then I found this thread and took the head apart as the original poster did. Yes, the hole on the plastic side was totally blocked. Used alcohol again, still no go. I then put everything into my kitchen sank and used tap warm water to wash them. After 3 tanks of water flushed and moved the parts back and forth for about 10 minutes, all holes became through compressed air. Dried them with compressed air and put everything back into the printer. Now it prints in full colors like brand new! Incredible, I thought the head was burned out and was beyond recovery as there was no any black out.

So, use warm water instead of alcohol and, if still no go, take the head apart, the head should be unclogged for sure.

 

[Nifty]

Amazing story! Thanks for sharing. Imagine how many printers are in the landfil because of clogs like this.

 

[newuser4]

I'd like to thank Grandad35 for his guide, I've just taken my Pixma ip3000 back to life after an hard clog.

I read this topic back in 2006, yesterday it happened to me. I've changed ink, I've flushed cartridge, I've soaked the printhead in a cleaning solution but nothing worked.

So I've disassembled the printhead and found that the clog was in the plastic part. The hardest thing was to figure out how to detach the pcb since it is glued to the plastic assembly, luckily it was enough to slide it toward the bottom avoiding to stress the ribbon cable.
After blowing the holes with compressed air I was able to put it back togheter and now it's working like a charm. I still have to fix the pcb with glue, tomorrow I'll go down hunting for a glue gun.

Thank you again!

 

[Grandad35]

newuser4,

Glad to be of help. Success stories like yours are the reason why people take the time to post what they find. It's nice to know that people search the forum to find these old posts.

 

[Trigger 37]

Grandad35,.. Well it has been awhile but I finally got down to testing the "Reset the EEprom" solution. When I first saw this suggestion I felt that it would be "Logically Impossible" for the following reasons. 1. The EEpron in question is on the Main logic board and has nothing to do with the eeprom that is on the back of the printhead. The eeprom on the back of the printhead is probably not a prom at all but a EROM and the primary use is as a matrix decoder to convert the serial bitstream that de-serializes the bit stream, and to loads output registers, and drives the diode decoder matrix that selects which nozzles to fire.

Initializing the EEprom only clears all memory of what current data is stored there. None of this data has any effect on the decoding of signals to the printhead. Having said that,.. nothing is out of the realm of possibility when in comes to electronics. The logic card could read that data and decide to do what EVER it wanted to do.
However, there is NOTHING in that data that would provide any intelligence on what decision to make. How do I come to such a rational conclusion,... well I spent 33 years of my life in the design and development of complex integreated system and down to the level of design of integrated logic control system and the chips that did the final work. I also spent 15 years in the Management of these systems so I know what upper management would allow any engineer to do, "OR NOR TO DO".

I have examined each and every post since the original and I can find no evidence of anyone else being successful with this suggestion. My last resort was to test the suggestion myself, but I had to wait until I had a valid example. Below I have posted the image of my example prior to any testing.

As you can see, every other band of the nozzle test for Cyan is missing. As Grandad35 original suggested in this post, this looks so much like an electrical problem because it is so symetrical, and clogs don't have a mechanism to duplicate this effect. Reguardless of all of this imformation, I was excited to proceed with the testing, for I really hoped that "Somehow" this would be the answer.

This image is from a Canon S750 printer that I was given to repair. This is not a low cost throw awy printer as the spec's tend to surpass the i560 printer. So I did the test and the results made absolutely no change what so ever in the nozzle check. I have also scanned an loaded the Service test print to show that the rest of the eeprom data reset was totally successful.

This image shows that the upper nozzle matrix is not present at all. In the analysis that some of us have done this is the ODD band of the Matrix Nozzles. The first band that is printed in the nozzle check is the "0" band which is Even, and the 1,3,5, etc. bands are the odd bands in the printer code.

This is not the final word on this question, as it only concludes that "Resetting the eeprom" has no effect what so ever on the full band. Many times we have seen that the upper or lower part of either the ODD or EVEN band have been missing. I have not had the opportunity to test this, but I do have a defective printhead that has this occurance and I will test it as soon as I have the time. By the way, I did do this in a more "Engineering test mode" as I printed the Service test pattern before I made the reset, and then immediately after the reset I printed it again and that is the image above. Not one other change was made to the printer before each test.

I would love to have anyone that has different results with other heads post their results at this site. In the mean time, we continue the mystery of bad printheads.

 

[lin]

In reference to #177

I do agree with Trigger37 on this. If a user had PH with electrical problem such that there is missing band of nozzles in symetrical order in your nozzles check (some PH depict this as half band or entire missing band in nozzle check)/extended nozzle checks via Service Test Print, that is not a clog so there is really no need to waste more ink, time and youth trying to unclog the PH. Each of the pin at the printhead carrigage is sending signal via each "gold-looking" square block at the back of PH control by a chip. Clearing the Logic board EEPOMS information will not have any effect on the PH.

Someone did disassembled the PH and remove the chip at the PH and re-solder back the chip from another PH that discarded by another user. And the result was a perfect nozzle printout. However, this require someone with good soldering skill.

 

[Trigger 37]

lin,... Thanks very much for your support on my comment. Sometimes after a few libations I tend to get very long winded. One additional comment,... If anyone out there ever has this type of PH problem, I totally discourage you from even attempting to remove and replace the decoder chip on the back of the PH. This is Surface Mount Technology and the spacing of the solder pads are in the 7-10 mil range which is virtually impossible unless you have Surface mount desoldering and Wave soldering technology. You are just waisting you time. One of my first jobs in Senior Management at IBM was to fund and develop a Surface Mount manufacturering plant in Charlotte, NC. It took over $300 million to get it right. It was a lot of fun.

 

[Jerry1111]

If anyone out there ever has this type of PH problem, I totally discourage you from even attempting to remove and replace the decoder chip on the back of the PH. This is Surface Mount Technology and the spacing of the solder pads are in the 7-10 mil range which is virtually impossible unless you have Surface mount desoldering and Wave soldering technology. You are just waisting you time. One of my first jobs in Senior Management at IBM was to fund and develop a Surface Mount manufacturering plant in Charlotte, NC. It took over $300 million to get it right. It was a lot of fun.

It must have been long time ago. Now everything (inlcuding BGAs) can be done on (almost) everyone's desk. A bit of patience, a lot of practice and good flux ;-)
As to the price of assembly line - electronics tend to get 50% cheaper every 2-3 years, so you can estimate how much it would be now - really not so much (probably because with ~$150m you've hit and solved a lot of problems which are not repeated any longer!).
I'd be happy to resolder the chip, but my printhead is still printing.

Best Regards,

Jerry1111

PS: Don't want to start a flame. I'm just stating the facts ;-)