Colours on Canon Pixma iP7250 suddenly stopped working

[John Dalton]

My printer had been working perfectly today when, without warning, it has suddenly refused to print any colours - this is only an hour or so after successful colour printing.

There is no visible sign at all of any problems. There are no error messages. The paper, or printable disk, feeds through the printer with the usual printing noises but there is absolutely nothing coloured printed. The printer cartridges have ink in them and I have tried ordinary and deep cleaning without success. As far as I can see the wi-fi connection is functioning.

However, the PGBK cartridge, unlike the colour cartridges , still appears to be working. If I do a nozzle check the PGBK pattern is printed, along with a few words of black text after where the missing colour patterns should be. Also, a Word document with black text and text of various colours only prints the black text.

I am totally bamboozled by this. Any suggestions, or further tests that I could carry out, would be gratefully appreciated.

 

[PeterBJ]

This is most likely an electronic failure of the print head, and only a new print head might help. When a Canon print head fails it might damage the logic board, and the now damaged logic board can damage a new print head.

This mode of print head failure is not unknown with Canon printers, it can happen without apparent reason.

There is a very slight chance that the failure is caused by dirty contacts on the print head, so you could try cleaning the golden contact pads on the backside of the print head and the contact springs in the print head carriage with a rag moistened with isopropyl alcohol or an electronics contact cleaner.

So buying a new print head is a gamble, and I cannot tell your odds for success. The parts number for the print head is QY6-0082 if you want to search for one.

 

[The Hat]

@John Dalton, One other thing that was not mentioned, when you see your having output issues (Poor prints) you should stop all test prints immediately till you can resolve this serious problem.

You can quite often fix your printing issues but you must first find out what is causing the poor output quality, and the only safe way is by using nozzle checks, all other print methods can only further damage your print head..

 

[John Dalton]

Many thanks for the quick replies. A quick check on prices for a new print head gave £52 & £54 (without P&P). As the printer originally cost £54 and as you say that it won't guarantee success, I'd say that not buying a new print head is a bit of a no-brainer. I'll give cleaning the print head a try when I can obtain some IPA.

As the printer is only 16 months old it is a disappointment, but I suppose it's just one of those things. At least I can still print b&w documents (the quality seems satisfactory) while I think about things and, fortunately, I only do colour printing occasionally.