How to remove PRO-1 printhead ?

[Wojciech Migda]

Thank You for the answer. Just to clarify one thing. When my wife wanted to print the printer did not let her print. Just after the cleaning cycle instead of running a nozzle check she send one or two photos and the printer accepted it and printed it just without the ink. When I unplugged the printer it was turned of prior to that.
Loosing some ink is not such a problem but the waste ink pads and reaching 80% is what bothers me - I read about Your journey in trying to use an external waste ink reservoir.
I would like to avoid sending this printer to ACS.
Wasting some ink is not something i like, but from https://print-klex.de I can get a set of all 12 inks for 68 EUR inkl. VAT, and since I am located in Poland I will get it without VAT, so it is around 50 EUR for a set, probably cheaper then sending this thing to ACS.
I bought this to replace our broken Epson 4800, where cleaning the print head with a cleaning fluid using a syringe caused the membrane between adjacent chambers in the printhead to break and killed the printhead - I even bought another used Epson 4800 and tried to replace the head but the new one was also clogged and I killed it just as I did with the first....so now I have a lot o spare parts for the 4800 and am a little reluctant to order a new print head since it is expensive and I need (at least the maintanance manual says so) Epson Wizzard (software) that I cannot get my hands on....
Would it make sens to replace all inks with new ones and try a cleaning (or deep cleaning or even a system cleaning - no idea what this is for)?

Wojtek

 

[The Hat]

OK This Pro 1 is not an Epson printer, so it should be threated quite differently, and unlike the Epson, if you print with the Canon printer while it is having nozzle issues (No ink), then that action can very well damage the print head.

Canon print heads must have ink inside every channel while they are printing, the ink acts as a coolant for every hot electrical components that is firing the nozzles, if any one of the channels suffer from ink starvation during this operation, then that channel may well be lost for ever. (Burned out Nozzles)

Fitting an external waste ink tank to the Pro 1 is straight forward, so long as you obey certain rules, but your problem is the waste ink counter standing at 80%, and if you run many more cleaning cycles you will have to get it emptied and reset,because the printer will shut down till you do.

Deep cleans should only be carried out once in every 12 hours but it is extremely wasteful on ink, A system clean is just that, it empties/replaces all the inks in the printer and must be done when replacing a print head.

If you cannot enter Service mode yourself, the printer is as good as dead, because without that you must send it back to Canon Service to empty the waste and reset the ink counter, there is no alternative.

P.S. how do you know the waste ink tank is 80% ?...

 

[Wojciech Migda]

I just looked into the printer and saw that space where the printhead (carriage) moves is a lite dirty so i wiped it with a paper towel and some flushing fluid and then I found out, that the space in the middle (black on the picture) is soaked with ink. Is this the place where the ink is dumped? Why is there so much ink? It also seams that this kind of absorption material is quite thick (on my Epson 4800 it is around 0,3 mm or so, in this Canon it seems to be several mm).
Is there a way to unlock the print head carriage in order to move it so it is possible to place a paper towel soaked with flushing solution underneath it, in order to dissolve potential clogs (it worked to some extent on my Epson, I know that this Canon is unlike a Epson, so this is why I ask before I try anything). Is this paper towel idea something worth trying or is it potentially dangerous for the printer?

 

[The Hat]

If it’s your wish to poke around inside the printer, then so be it, that piece of foam rubber can be lifted out and cleaned, but be careful it will only go back in the same way that it came out, the piece of foam is only there to clean up over spray..

 

[Wojciech Migda]

Thank You for the instructions, at this moment I think I will wait with the disassembly until there is nothing else for me left to do ;-).

 

[The Hat]

there is nothing else for me left to do ;-).

Hopefully that won’t happen...

 

[Wojciech Migda]

By the way, is the imagePROGRAF PRO-1000 a better printer in terms of maintenance?
I am thinking about getting my printer to work and if I succeed then maybe sell it and get a PRO-1000. At least it has an easy accessible wast ink tank (maintenance tank).....

 

[The Hat]

By the way, is the imagePROGRAF PRO-1000 a better printer in terms of maintenance?

Yes it is but it’s no cheaper to run, and it drinks ink when left unused...
It’s more suitable a printer for someone who wants to sell their prints...

 

[Wojciech Migda]

Thank You.
A little update:
I was able to trick the printer a little - I wanted to wipe the printhead (nozzles) from underneath with a soaked paper towel and since I din't want to disassemble it I ran a few (7 to be precise) nozzle checks and since this printer is wider than A4 i put two soaked paper towels left and right from the space for the A4 test sheet and printed the nozzle checks. This made the printhead ran over the paper towel wiping it clean. One time the paper (run 3 or 4 it was) blocked the head - it was too thick - which gave some loud noises and an error (5100) and a yellow light flashing, the error told me to turn the printer off and remove anything that is in the printer and turn it on again.
After that the printer was probably a little angry with me and did a lot of strange noises - probably punishing me by dumping a lot of ink ;-) - and after that it was quite ok but there was still a white stripe on the nozzle check.
In between I ran two clean cycles (but the simple ones only for unit 3).
I then put once again two paper towels (soaked with flushing fluid) on both sides of the picture I asked my wife to print and we printed a picture. After that I printed a nozzle check one last time and this is what it looked like:

So it seems to me, that the printer is fine now.

My final conclusions are, that this printer is tricky and if the nozzle check shows missing colors than a cleaning cycle and two pieces of paper towel on both sides of the print during nozzle check should be a good starting point.

Once again thank You for all the advise ;-).

Mr. The Hat and patience is what got this printer to work!!!

Wojtek


Edit:

 

[Wojciech Migda]

By the way I had an idea of solving clogs on ink printers and would like to hear some opinions on it:
The idea is to get some used ink tanks with new chips or reseted chips, so that the printer (this is not aimed only at Canon but at ink printers in general) would accept them, but instead of filling them with ink, to fill them with flushing fluid.
So every time there is a stubborn clogged head, where normal cleaning does not help, the tanks with flushing solution would be popped in and then the cleaning cycle could be run several times....
What do You think of that?
Greetings Wojtek