ink banding on Canon Pixma ip4200

[twcinnh]

I've been getting vertical bands of black ink from my Pixma 4200. They are on both sides of paper and slightly offset from the center. A bottom plate cleaning usually solves the problem but it comes back. The first time it took a few months, the last time it came after using an unchipped cartridge with a chip from an old cartridge. The banding was the worst ever. A few months ago I was using old Canon cartridges that I refillled.

I now have an original Canon cartridge in the printer and all is well, but I'm wondering what causes this banding. When trying to solve the problem last night I successfully ran paper through the bottom plate cleaning cycle. But, when sending a print job I noticed the printer seemed to go through some routine (was it purging ink or something?). It took a few seconds to perform this cycle and when printing the banding was back.

One of the things I've set on the printer is the on/off cycle to 10 minutes. When the printer is first turned on does it go through a cycle that uses ink, and could this be the problem. I've now set the on/off cycle to the max, 60 minutes, to see if this reduces any cycling on start up.

I'm also planning to clean the ink absorbers to see if that helps.

Am I right about cycling when the ip4200 is turned on? Or not. Is it overflow from the ink absorbers that might be causing the banding?

Thanks for any suggestions/comments.

Regards,

Tom C

 

[Trigger 37]

Tom C,... Set your printer on a separate power strip and change the settings so it NEVER is turned off. Each time the printer is turned on it may do a cleaning cycle which will dump 10-15 times as much ink as you would use to print just a nozzle check. So you know where it ink is going, down to the waste ink pads, not to mention that you are empting you ink carts 10x faster than is normal.

To keep your printer working in top condition, print something everday, even if it is only the nozzle check pattern. The does many things for you. 1. It keeps the printhead FRESH with new ink. 2. It cleans the nozzles for you. 3. It shows you the print quality of each nozzle in the printhead. It keeps the purge unit from drying up and it keeps the printhead from clogging up on any color.

A lot of people that typically only print in black text wonder why their color ink keeps getting lower and lower. The answer is that each automatic cleaning cycle dump the same amount of ink for each color reguardless if you EVER print anything in color. So after several weeks of this, your color ink carts are empty and you are wondering why????. Canon does this to INSURE THAT THE PRINTHEAD NEVER CLOGS AND THAT THERE IS ALWAYS FRESH NEW INK PRIMMED INTO THE PRINTHEAD, SUCH THAT WHEN YOU DO WANT TO PRINT, IT WILL BE PERFECT. OH, BY THE WAY, THEY ALSO LIKE THIS SINCE IT USES THE MAXIMUM AMOUNT OF INK.

 

[twcinnh]

Son of a gun. Aren't those folks at Canon clever.

By the way, is it much of a job to clean the absorbers? I'm assuming they are pretty full and that is what has caused the banding, or just keep going until the problem comes back.

Thanks for the advice.

Tom C

 

[Trigger 37]

Tom C,... For any of the Canon Printers, the ink absorbers are at the absolute bottom of the plastic base, and to get at them and remove them for cleaning you have to disassembly the entire printer and remove the main chassis from the base. It is not difficult to do is you know what you are doing, but the important thing is to know how to test it when you get it apart, such that when you put it back together you know you have it right.

I have worked for several years to create Repair Manuals for most all of the Canon Printers, including the iP4200. If you want to know more about this just send me an email and I will respond.