I'm getting horizontal banding on colour printouts, especially in the blue areas.
Here's an example, where I used the printer's copy function to copy a magazine cover.
Here's a scan of a nozzle check:
(This is actually the nozzle check as it stands now, as opposed to when the problem first appeared. Unfortunately I didn't keep my original nozzle checks. However as far as I can remember they were pretty much the same as this: in particular, I'm certain that the 6BK pattern has been like that throughout and pretty sure that the stripe in the darker 6C was there from the start too.)
I've run short and long cleaning cycles, replaced all cartridges with new ones (all OEM cartridges, old and new), taking out the printhead and cleaning the electrical contacts on the head and printer with a pencil eraser - these things alone have made no difference.
What did work briefly was dabbing the nozzles of the printhead on some gauze soaked in deionized water. This fixed the 6C on the nozzle check! It didn't improve the 6BK. I did a colour copy and no stripes so I was satisfied. Unfortunately the next day it was bad again.
I've since tried more dabbing and eventually progressed to dunking the end of the printhead into a bowl of deionized water (not getting the electrical contacts wet) and jiggling furiously until the all the ink had presumably washed out. This is where I'm up to; the nozzle check is the picture above, and repeating any of these actions (except for replacing the cartridges again, not having bought more yet) is making no difference.
Am I on the right track in treating this is a clogged printhead? Should I persevere with the cleaning and maybe take it to the next level of doing it with alcohol or something?
I read the "Anatomy of a Canon print head" thread with interest.
Am I right in understanding that the two columns of nozzles I've higlighted in cyan - ie. the bigger cyan nozzles - are used to print the first 6C block on the nozzle check? And would I be right to suspect that the nozzles on the bottom half of either one of those columns are clogged (so causing the bottom half of the printed block to appear with only half the intensity)?
Finally, what's the 6BK for? In the short window of time when the 6C was fixed, I did both colour and grayscale printouts from the computer (changing the colour/grayscale option in the print properties dialog) and they looked fine - even though the 6BK on the nozzle check has all the while been obviously, totally broken.
Thanks to anyone who can shed some light on these cloudy, inky issues.
Here's an example, where I used the printer's copy function to copy a magazine cover.
Here's a scan of a nozzle check:
(This is actually the nozzle check as it stands now, as opposed to when the problem first appeared. Unfortunately I didn't keep my original nozzle checks. However as far as I can remember they were pretty much the same as this: in particular, I'm certain that the 6BK pattern has been like that throughout and pretty sure that the stripe in the darker 6C was there from the start too.)
I've run short and long cleaning cycles, replaced all cartridges with new ones (all OEM cartridges, old and new), taking out the printhead and cleaning the electrical contacts on the head and printer with a pencil eraser - these things alone have made no difference.
What did work briefly was dabbing the nozzles of the printhead on some gauze soaked in deionized water. This fixed the 6C on the nozzle check! It didn't improve the 6BK. I did a colour copy and no stripes so I was satisfied. Unfortunately the next day it was bad again.
I've since tried more dabbing and eventually progressed to dunking the end of the printhead into a bowl of deionized water (not getting the electrical contacts wet) and jiggling furiously until the all the ink had presumably washed out. This is where I'm up to; the nozzle check is the picture above, and repeating any of these actions (except for replacing the cartridges again, not having bought more yet) is making no difference.
Am I on the right track in treating this is a clogged printhead? Should I persevere with the cleaning and maybe take it to the next level of doing it with alcohol or something?
I read the "Anatomy of a Canon print head" thread with interest.
Am I right in understanding that the two columns of nozzles I've higlighted in cyan - ie. the bigger cyan nozzles - are used to print the first 6C block on the nozzle check? And would I be right to suspect that the nozzles on the bottom half of either one of those columns are clogged (so causing the bottom half of the printed block to appear with only half the intensity)?
Finally, what's the 6BK for? In the short window of time when the 6C was fixed, I did both colour and grayscale printouts from the computer (changing the colour/grayscale option in the print properties dialog) and they looked fine - even though the 6BK on the nozzle check has all the while been obviously, totally broken.
Thanks to anyone who can shed some light on these cloudy, inky issues.
