How do you keep a Canon printer happy?

[Digital10d]

Hi all

I'm new to this forum and what a resource of information and help it is ! I have read about the many issues and fixes and it occurred to me that most people like myself just use a printer without a thought about maintenance. I have not seen any threads on this. I guess a lot of problems would not occur if we knew how to maintain our printers. So first of all is it possible to obtain maintenance manuals ? Secondly what should we be doing to keep ours printers like new. With regards to Canon printers any major do's and don'ts.

I ask this because I have just bought a IP4700 intend to refill the OEM carts with good quality ink and using this printer for photos only. There will be days maybe weeks when I print nothing and then go mad and print all weekend.

 

[azuchrome]

I'd think the best thing you could do for your new printer is remember to print a nozzle check page at least once a week, EVERY week. It might also be a good idea to do the same with one small, full-color photo and a half-page of dense text, just to be sure. You might be wasting a little paper, but keeping your printer "limber" on a regular basis will go a long way toward the long-term health and readiness of your printer.

 

[The Hat]

Digital10d

There is no real maintenance to do on the ip4700 printer, just turn it on and it will take care of it all itself.
The only thing you have to take care of on your side is to make sure you cartridges dont leak when you installed them in the printer.
The ip4700 can be left for weeks on end without printing a sheet at all, so when youre ready to print something just hit the print button.
Good luck with your refilling and dont forget about getting a resetter..

 

[ghwellsjr]

Both good advice: leave your printer turned on all the time so that it can maintain itself by doing periodic cleanings and then do a nozzle check and check the ink levels once a week so that if a problem arises, you will notice it in time to do something about it before it gets worse. Leaving a printer turned off for a long time is a sure way to clog nozzles, especially the pigment black ones. Who knows how long? Do you really want to find out?

 

[The Hat]

ghwellsjr


This particular Canon printer does enough preening and cleaning all by its self that it requires no help from anyone and is designed to auto shutoff after printing.
Maybe if the ink used is not good quality then by all means leave it on, but I believe in this case he intends using Octoinkjet inks..

 

[qwertydude]

Also make sure you periodically flush the carts. I found out even with high quality MIS inks after about 10 or so refills the flow rate slows down, turns out it's not clogged but the foam will swell. I shrink the foam by injecting denatured alcohol into the cart after rinsing which also dissolves any sediment buildup and dries quickly. Then I simply put new ink in. Most of what keeps these printers happy is keeping your refilled carts in good condition. Also I like to keep the little wipers near the park pads clean, wipe em with some moist tissues every now and then to sop up the dried ink on them.

 

[ghwellsjr]

ghwellsjr


This particular Canon printer does enough preening and cleaning all by its self that it requires no help from anyone and is designed to auto shutoff after printing.
Maybe if the ink used is not good quality then by all means leave it on, but I believe in this case he intends using Octoinkjet inks..

Auto shut off is a green quality that I hope you can turn off. It is always better to leave the printer on from the point of view of printer maintenance which is what the question was.

 

[The Hat]

ghwellsjr

I totally agree with you on that but the auto shut off also serves as a cleaning schedule as well.
This Canon printer likes to be very generous wasting peoples ink..

 

[fotofreek]

With refill ink costing somewhere in the area of $1 per refilled cart as opposed to the retail cost of a new OEM cartridge, I am delighted to indulge my printers in whatever ink-wasting habits they wish to maintain! Although regularly printing something as preventitive maintenance may be wasteful and redundant, I would hate to find that that too long a period of not printing might clog my printhead and subject me to Canon's nefarious practice of "improving" their newer printers to thwart refilling.

Kind of like scheduled oil changes in my cars. Can you "stretch" the time intervals between oil changes by a few thousand miles safely? You only find out you can't by doing so and potentially shortening the life of your engine. I guess that the real answer is that most often you can get away with it, but there will be a time when you don't and the problem you create is more onerous than the few dollars you would have "wasted" by being more cautious.

I've purchased two new printheads for my ip5000 printers to keep in reserve for the inevitable printhead failure. I didn't look ahead adequately for my two i960 printers and there are no new, factory sealed printheads available for them any longer. One is presently a very nice paperweight and the other, although still functioning reasonably well needs more tender loving care to keep the printhead working properly. Thanks to ghwellsjr, I will at least have a chance to nurse the one remaining i960 printhead along for a while longer!

 

[Digital10d]

First of all thanks for your replies. Understand most of the suggestions so far and do most of them with my other printer an Epson. The one I do not quite see is the idea of leaving the printer ON all the time. Under tips in the manual it mentions "If you press the Power button to turn off the power, the printer caps the Print Head (nozzles) automatically to prevent from drying" so I take from this when the printer is ON the head is not capped. I cannot see anything about auto cleaning cycles if left ON. When the printer is first turned ON it certainly seems to go into a world of its own which sounds to me like its performing some sort of checks and I'm guessing a cleaning cycle. As a result I have started to leave it ON during the day but I do turn it OFF at night. If ON is best all the time then thats what I'll do, certainly do not mind it using a little ink if it avoids clogs and deep cleans.