F50 Nozzle Check Image?

[tonym924]

I just acquired an F50 and am trying to get it printing properly.
The manual (and online copy at Canon USA) are in black and white,
and there appears to be no other indication of which colors go where
on the nozzle check page. I'd greatly appreciate a post of, or pointer
to, an image with the correct patterns.

Here's what I've done with this unit so far:

1. Performed initial test, got error for empty BK, cyan carts.
2. Confirmed BK, C carts empty, noticed Y cart was greenish.
3. Replaced empty BK cart with OfficeMax refill, C cart with Canon.
4. Performed head alignment, got BK, C, very little M, no Y to print
on horizontal sheet, BK, C, and some Y (i.e. color was forest green)
on vertical sheet.
5. Did nozzle check and got BK, C patterns (all three color hatch
patterns were C), no M or Y.
6. Soaked head in warm water (removed two screws and separated
head from plastic housing, left at PCB attached to case), let dry
overnight, applied canned air next morning, reassembled later that day.
7. Did nozzle check, got C, M, (lime greenish) Y, no BK.
8. Observed BK leaking from nozzle area, tried reseating carts,
dismantling/rinsing/reassembling head again, cleaned not-dirty gold
contacts on PCB, one or two cleaning cycles, more alignment and
nozzle checks. Still no BK.
9. Let unit sit for two hours (with power on); meanwhile, discovered
this site and read a lot about Canon head cleaning.
10. Did another nozzle check, got BK, C, no M, no Y (same as in
Step 5).

Any further insights into this behavior would also be appreciated.
I plan to try more cleaning cycles and/or look for issues with the
park pads and waste system.

Is there a program similar to SSC Service Utility
(http://www.ssclg.com/epsone.shtml) for Canon printers? It sure
would be nice to do a color specific, or black only, cleaning cycle
to minimize waste.

Regards,
Tony

 

[Trigger 37]

Tony,... Wow,... you are lucky you didn't kill your printhead. It does sound like the leaking black you have could be from the printhead. Is it still leaking. When you say "Nozzle area" do you mean from the bottom of the printhead.

The nozzzle check pattern looks very similar, if not identical to the Canon i550 printer. I have both manuals but I already have a sample print for the i550 which I have uploaded below. Click on the image to get a large picture.



Scan one of your nozzle checks and upload it to your next post. Go to the very top of the forum and you will see the "Upload". Select the browse function and find the scanned image and select it. Once it is uploaded to that page, click and select all of the html text. Then back up two pages to your post and paste the HTML text to your post.

Taking the screws out of the printhead and taking it apart is a very risky thing to do. Some people are just lucky. From your original comments, the yellow ink was empty but you said in your first nozzle check you did get some yellow but with a greenish tint,.. that is cyan leaking into the yellow.

After you took it apart, you didn't mention that you found anything inside or cleaned anything inside.

So now you have the Bk, C, M, but no yellow. Make sure screws are tight. Take the printhead to your laundry room sink, and flush all the ink out with the medium hot water, such that you can stand to hold it under the faucet stream. If you have a hand sprayer, turn the head over and focus the stream on the nozzles, especially the yellow. Turn the head over to see if you are getting any yellow ink to come back out the yellow filter screen. Set the head in a large dish like a square cassarole disk with about 1/2" of hot water. Nothing hotter than you could stand with your hand. Change the water when it cools and repeat. After you have done this a couple of time, and maybe let it set over night, fold up a paper towel to 1/4 size and wet it with hot water. Set it on a saucer and put the head on top and let it set till it cools. Check to see if there is any yellow or any other color ink coming out. Repeat this several times as old dried up clogs and be really stubborn.

Rinse the head again, dry it off, blow it dry with compressed air, clean the contacts on the back, clean the contacts inside the Carriage asm using a tissue and alcohol (only wipe downwards). Install the head and know good ink carts and run a couple of cleaning cycles and then print a nozzle check pattern. Upload the result to a new post.

 

[tonym924]

Thanks for your response and helpful suggestions, Trigger37. Unfortunately, the printhead needs replacing, though I don't believe that I killed it.

One other detail that I didn't mention in my original post is that when I first separated the head from the plastic housing, the flex circuit separated from the edge of the white substrate of the head (the glue and soldermask remained stuck to the head). The tracks on the flex circuit appeared to be intact, so I didn't consider it to be a problem.

After another dissasembly and manual cleaning (with water/IPA/ammonia solution) didn't improve the test print, I took the printhead to work and examined it under a microscope. No sign of ink was left on the head or input ports, so I looked at the tracks on the exposed area of the flex circuit. I was surprised to see discoloration and erosion of the copper. At first I thought it was black ink residue, but cleaning with IPA didn't remove it. I used a knife to gently scrape away some of the discoloration, which made the erosion of the sides of the tracks that much more obvious. Maybe the tracks were partially lifted when I pulled the flex away from the edge of the head? No, there was no sign of copper on the glue/soldermask attached to the head. So I've concluded that the area is corroded, but by what? The glue? Ink or moisture seeping in through a void in the soldermask, which combined with voltage on the tracks to erode the copper? I applied more ammoniated cleaning solution to that area to see if that had an effect, and confirmed that it did not.
While there are no obvious breaks in any of the traces (most of the tracks are too fine to get meter probes on them to check continuity), I think it's likely that the intermittent problem I was seeing was electrical, and there's no sense in investing any more time or effort in this printhead. If I can't scrounge one up locally (just missed an F30 on Craigslist for $10), I'll order one from ebay.

Thanks again for your help, and for posting the actual color check pattern. I still find it strange that it's not available from Canon.

Tony

 

[Trigger 37]

tonym924,... You can actually buy one from Canon for a better price than anyone is selling them on eBay. Look on Canon's web site for "How to order Parts" and call that number. Tell them you want to make a CreditCard order. I'm not sure the F30 and the F50 have the same printhead. Check it out first.

 

[fotofreek]

I found that inkcessories had the best prices for printheads. they also sell on ebay and sell some of their canon carts there at a lower price than their web site. I would trust them on their own site or on their ebay store, but I'd be wary of other ebay vendors - especially if the price is too good to be true! I bought one printhead from them at their web site. Quick service and a factory sealed package with new printhead.

 

[Smile]

I found that inkcessories had the best prices for printheads. they also sell on ebay and sell some of their canon carts there at a lower price than their web site. I would trust them on their own site or on their ebay store, but I'd be wary of other ebay vendors - especially if the price is too good to be true! I bought one printhead from them at their web site. Quick service and a factory sealed package with new printhead.

inkcessories works fine if you live in US, anyone knows good shop to buy that is in european union?

 

[lin]

tonym924,... You can actually buy one from Canon for a better price than anyone is selling them on eBay. Look on Canon's web site for "How to order Parts" and call that number. Tell them you want to make a CreditCard order. I'm not sure the F30 and the F50 have the same printhead. Check it out first.

Hi Trigger, I was curious and I went to Canon online shop but I could find the anywhere that might indicate the selling of printhead.

 

[Trigger 37]

lin,...Here is the link to the Canon Web page, "Ordering Replacement Parts". The first example part is "PrintHeads"

http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/c...portDetailTabAct&fcategoryid=232&modelid=9282

Some people would like to keep this secret, since they sell the same parts for 25% more. Gradually the word is getting out. Anyone can buy parts from Canon. Try that at HP or Epson, etc.

By the way, if no one has done the calculation, for a very large percentage of the HP printers, they use a very similar ink carts like the HP 56,and 57, or the HP 96,97. Their color ink carts hold 17ml of ink or about 5.5ml per color. They sell this ink cart everywhere for $35, or about $2.00 per ml. That works out to $7,680 per gallon of ink.

Can you imagine people will pay that kind of money for just ink. The sad thing also is that this is a 3 color ink cart, and when one color runs out, guess what, you have to through away the other ink. People are doing this by the 100,000s. The other thing that is stupid about this is just how many pages to you think you can print with 5ml of ink. You actually can't use all the 5ml, since just to prime the ink cart the first time, they suck out about 0.5ml of each color. Everytime you turn the printer on it will do an automatic cleaning, or if it has been over 12 hours since you last printer, one more cleaning. Another really dumb thing that HP does is that when you see some streaks in one color of your printing, you have to do a cleaning cycle, but they don't have a separate cleaning cycle for black and color as Canon has, so when you do the cleaning to fix one color you are dumping ink for 4 colors. Three times the waste.

 

[Smile]

lin,...Here is the link to the Canon Web page, "Ordering Replacement Parts". The first example part is "PrintHeads"

http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/c...portDetailTabAct&fcategoryid=232&modelid=9282

Some people would like to keep this secret, since they sell the same parts for 25% more. Gradually the word is getting out. Anyone can buy parts from Canon. Try that at HP or Epson, etc.

By the way, if no one has done the calculation, for a very large percentage of the HP printers, they use a very similar ink carts like the HP 56,and 57, or the HP 96,97. Their color ink carts hold 17ml of ink or about 5.5ml per color. They sell this ink cart everywhere for $35, or about $2.00 per ml. That works out to $7,680 per gallon of ink.

Can you imagine people will pay that kind of money for just ink. The sad thing also is that this is a 3 color ink cart, and when one color runs out, guess what, you have to through away the other ink. People are doing this by the 100,000s. The other thing that is stupid about this is just how many pages to you think you can print with 5ml of ink. You actually can't use all the 5ml, since just to prime the ink cart the first time, they suck out about 0.5ml of each color. Everytime you turn the printer on it will do an automatic cleaning, or if it has been over 12 hours since you last printer, one more cleaning. Another really dumb thing that HP does is that when you see some streaks in one color of your printing, you have to do a cleaning cycle, but they don't have a separate cleaning cycle for black and color as Canon has, so when you do the cleaning to fix one color you are dumping ink for 4 colors. Three times the waste.

Can't find the Ordering Replacement Parts only to choose service center. I still need the purge sensor and logic board for i6600D
would like to search and see prices etc.

 

[fotofreek]

I just checked out the link for canon parts. You have to call a toll-free number and order by phone. :The printheads were definitely cheaper than inkcessories. When I bought an i960 printhead about a year ago, however, Canon was higher than inkcessories. Thanks for the info .