How to remove print head canon i960

[bill74]

Herb, a more experienced person like hpnetserver will likely have a better idea but I set the cartridges upright, side by side, just like they are positioned in the printhead, on clean kleenex and put a book on either side to hold them up. Then I hold a wad of Kleenex under the print head and blow out the ink holes from the inside with canned air. Then I wipe out inside of the print head with Kleenex, replace the printhead, then replace the cartridges. Worked for me. Bill

 

[herky]

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Hi Bill, when U hold the wad of kleenex under the printhead, do U get much ink overspray? Shall do it in a carton? Like a spray booth or is it controllable?

 

[bill74]

Herb, cover the underside of the ink head with a generous wad of kleenex because there will be a good bit of spray, depending on how much air you blow through. You might get a bit of ink on your fingers. Use a generous wad of kleenex and blow away. If you are worried about the desk or carpet, do it over the sink. You'll soon discover for yourself how much kleenex to use. Don't worry about things, just do it.....that is the only way to learn. Good luck, sir. Bill

 

[herky]

Thnax Bill, wish me luck for manana AM
cheers-Herb.

 

[hpnetserver]

Hi Bill, Herb, in my opinion it's better to leave the print head alone unless you have to. Any time doing any thing, including cleaning, there is an increased risk to cause damage to it. I may be too conservative in that. But if the printer works perfectly I really don't want to mess with it. If you get the right ink and cartridge together they will not give you any problem as long as you observe a few basic rules in taking care of the printer. I think one most important rule may be to make sure the print head is not starving of ink, which implies never to let ink dry in the ink intake port as well as in the print head. According to my experience pulling a cartridge out of a printer for a few minutes will be fine. Of course if you can put it back you do want to put it back as soon as you can. When I pull a cartridge out for a few minutes I really don't do anything particular to prevent ink from drying out of the cartridge. But if I were to store a cartridge I would recap the bottom cap and wrap a rubber band to secure it to the cartridge then store it in a plastic bag sealed. Bill, I use Hobbicolors refill kits for my ip8500. The kit has a very good set of ink and empty cartridges that work just great with the ink. I have had the printer for about 10 months now. Never find a need to clean my print head. In fact I even rarely need to run cleaning cycles. The printer did the cleaning cycles as programmed by Canon. Other than that I seldom need to clean it at all. So I almost never took the print head out. Probably once a week I do need to pull a cartridge to refill. I will just plug an empty one in when I pull one out. After refilling I will just do a swap and verify that the ink status is updated to full for the one I just refilled. This Canon printer has been the best printer I ever used. I do wonder if I should give the credit to Hobbicolors refill kit or if the ip8500 is much more refill friendly. But with a very high count of number of nozzles on the ip8500 print head It should be more likely to get problems. Luckily it has been trouble free so far.

 

[bill74]

Thank you again, hpnetserver. I appreciate the fact that you are willing to share your expertise with a couple of old cronies. I certainly agree that one should not mess with the print head unless it becomes necessary to do so. I follow the old adage "If it aint broke, don't fix it". The only reason I removed and cleaned my print head is because my Status Monitor no longer shows the level of the ink in the cartridges, nor does it warn me when ink is getting low. I still haven't found the cause of this and Canon support doesn't know the reason either. I reasoned, as long as I had the print head out looking for the problem, I might as well clean it. I'm sure it wasn't necessary. My Status Monitor shows the ink levels frozen at certain levels whether the cartridges are full or empty so I have to remove them to check the ink level. I haven't solved the problem. The sensor is not blocked. God bless. Bill

 

[hpnetserver]

Bill, we all learn something here from others. So when I have a chance to share mine I have no reason not to. Here is what I know about how Canon printer's ink status monitor work. Canon printer uses counters in the printer's memory to count the number of ink ejections for each ink cartridge. The counter values will give estimates of each ink cartridge's ink consumption, which is shown on the graph of the status monitor. Besides this counter mechanism Canon printer also uses an IR sensor to look through the prism at the bottom of each ink cartridge. When the reservoir tank becomes clear (empty) it will immediately warn that the ink cartridge is empty. If the IR sensor does not detect the emptiness of the cartridge the status monitor graph will probably never reach zero.

Now for your printer, if you sawp one of the cartridges with a completely empty one and let the IR sensor to detect the emptiness (and show the warning on the status monitor) then replace the empty one immediately with one that is fully refilled, the status monitor graph should be reset back to full. The graph should begin to count down again to reflect pretty closely the cartridge's ink level. This is basically what I do each time when I refill a cartridge. I use an empty one to reset the graph so that it is full to begin with for the fully refilled cartridge. So my status monitor graph does show different levels reflecting the actual ink level in the cartridges pretty closely.

Without resetting the graph after a few refills the status monitor will be completely out of sync with the actual ink level. So give it a try to see if you can reset the graph by plugging in an empty one then replace it with another that is not empty. I believe it will work. Good luck Bill.

 

[bill74]

hpnetserver, thank you for your interest in my problem and for your very clear explanation of how the ink monitor works. The black cartridge has shown one quarter full for weeks so I replaced it with an empty one and turned the printer on. It still shows one quarter full so I removed it completely. Still one quarter full. I removed all the cartridges completely. Each cartridge still showed the same level as they have for weeks when this problem started. Nothing I do seems to change the reading on the monitor. I even reinstalled the printer driver and software which did nothing to change the readings on the ink monitor. I have just switched brands of cartridges from what I was using to Computer Friends cartridges so well see if I get a warning and a reset when one gets low on ink. I have corresponded with Canon support but they dont know what the source of the problem is either. The solution will probably turn out to be something simple. In the meantime, Ill just remove the cartridges frequently and check the ink levels visually. Thanks again. I might add that this printer is attached to two computers, both of which show the same incorrect ink levels. Bill

 

[hpnetserver]

Bill, you may be missing my point. Make sure your printer detects the emptiness of the empty cartridge you put in.
If this detection does not happen it will not reset the ink level graph. Canon printer does not detect missing cartridges. If you remove all cartridges the printer will not know anything about it and will still print. You will need an empty one for the printer to see it and see it being empty. Then when it sees it not empty next time it will reset the ink level. Your printer may have a problem in the infra-red sensor to not detect empty cartridges and never resets the ink level.

 

[bill74]

Hpnetserver, your explanation of how the printer senses ink levels was crystal clear and I understood it perfectly. I have substituted empty cartridges in three different slots but they failed to reset, and I do not get "low ink" warnings either. The other things I tried was just grasping at straws. This problem started when the company I buy ink from switched brands of cartridges. That probably didnt have anything to do with it but I have since switched to a brand of cartridges I know work fine. If that doesnt solve the problem, then I can only assume I have a faulty sensor. Thanks for your patience. Bill