Inkjet Printhead Cleaning Method

[refillergame]

Hello All ,


I suggest one simple solution for stucked cartridge Ultrasonic cleaner from http://www.refillmachine.com/refill/kategori_indeks.php?kategori_id=32&sayfa=2 its best for cartridge because it solves ink stucked inside they also made speacial ultrasonic cleaner which is from
5 .

hope I helped

 

[Zap]

Canon IP4200 clogged magenta port, and extremely weird repair. .

First the magenta port became intermittent. I cleaned the print head and got some color printing for a while, another month of printing, then finally suddenly solid clog. I tried all kinds of cleaning without any success, then took the print head nozzles loose from the body, thinking that I needed to find where the clog was. In the channel or in the nozzle.

this showed that the clog was in the body side and not in the nozzle. All the other colors were printing Ok. Only the Magenta was clogged. With the Nozzles disconnected from the print head body, I again soaked the body and used 100 Lb + air pressure in both directions, put a plastic tube over the magenta port and both blew air and vacuumed repeatedly for awhile, with and without cleaning solution. Put it back to soak for another day in Windex with ammonia. used air and vacuumed again with nothing passing through.

As a last resort with nothing to loose, I cut off the wire screen at the magenta input and found that the channel was absolutely clear. The screen was so plugged up that there was only one tiny spot in the screen which would let light through when the piece of screen was held up to a strong light. I have not yet discovered what would desolve the ink blocking that screen. But I did make another discovery which I am now going to pass on.

Now without that screen in place, there is nothing to press against the foam outlet port of the cartage, so no ink could flow by capillary action as it should into the nozzles. The print head is of no use at this point so there was nothing to loose. So I said to myself, what if I put a piece of felt in place where the wire screen had been? I thought that it would press against the foam outlet just as the wire screen did, So I cut out a round piece of thin felt using a leather punch which had a punch of exactly the right size to fit. (my wife had a bag full of thin felt pieces laying around)

It worked. Now the magenta ink flows freely to the nozzle, but does not appear to send too much ink, It now prints Ok.

There is nothing to hold that little piece of felt in place, no glue was used, and it would be easy to dislodge it, but on removing the magenta cartage a couple of times, I found that the little felt piece stayed in place.

Now I am not recommending that anyone do any of the above, and I only report it to expand knowledge. It is obvious that the felt, while it does pass the ink through, could not possibly filter to the very small particle size that is necessary to insure the nozzles would not plug up by large particles. Such an action could only be a very last effort before throwing the print head away, It could work long enough to finish a print job while waiting for a replacement print head.

Jack

 

[websnail]

Canon IP4200 clogged magenta port, and extremely weird repair. .

First the magenta port became intermittent. I cleaned the print head and got some color printing for a while, another month of printing, then finally suddenly solid clog. I tried all kinds of cleaning without any success, then took the print head nozzles loose from the body, thinking that I needed to find where the clog was. In the channel or in the nozzle.

this showed that the clog was in the body side and not in the nozzle. All the other colors were printing Ok. Only the Magenta was clogged. With the Nozzles disconnected from the print head body, I again soaked the body and used 100 Lb + air pressure in both directions, put a plastic tube over the magenta port and both blew air and vacuumed repeatedly for awhile, with and without cleaning solution. Put it back to soak for another day in Windex with ammonia. used air and vacuumed again with nothing passing through.

As a last resort with nothing to loose, I cut off the wire screen at the magenta input and found that the channel was absolutely clear. The screen was so plugged up that there was only one tiny spot in the screen which would let light through when the piece of screen was held up to a strong light. (snip)

Thanks for sharing that nugget... I'd be interested to hear what ink you were using with the unit that gave you this result... I suspect it's not related to the issues I saw with Magenta and the banding but still useful to hear what your solution was...

 

[Zap]

Canon IP4200 clogged magenta port, and extremely weird repair. .

First the magenta port became intermittent. I cleaned the print head and got some color printing for a while, another month of printing, then finally suddenly solid clog. I tried all kinds of cleaning without any success, then took the print head nozzles loose from the body, thinking that I needed to find where the clog was. In the channel or in the nozzle.

this showed that the clog was in the body side and not in the nozzle. All the other colors were printing Ok. Only the Magenta was clogged. With the Nozzles disconnected from the print head body, I again soaked the body and used 100 Lb + air pressure in both directions, put a plastic tube over the magenta port and both blew air and vacuumed repeatedly for awhile, with and without cleaning solution. Put it back to soak for another day in Windex with ammonia. used air and vacuumed again with nothing passing through.

As a last resort with nothing to loose, I cut off the wire screen at the magenta input and found that the channel was absolutely clear. The screen was so plugged up that there was only one tiny spot in the screen which would let light through when the piece of screen was held up to a strong light. (snip)

Thanks for sharing that nugget... I'd be interested to hear what ink you were using with the unit that gave you this result... I suspect it's not related to the issues I saw with Magenta and the banding but still useful to hear what your solution was...

Hi websnail,

I can only guess. I have used the same ink in BCI-6 and CSI-8 cartages now for many years now And before that the HP500 & HP600 (since 1994) from V-Tech Inc. who does not advertise but works only by word of mouth. I have used inks for both HP printers (HP500 & HP600) as well as a number of different Canon printers (S600 & IP4000, & IP4200), that is multiple printers of each series. I have never had any problem with that ink causing any clogs in a dozen different printers. I quit counting number of refills when the count was reaching 30 + refills on my BCI-6 Cartages years ago, without a print head failure.

Therefore what I would suspect is that over time that one or more of my Canon CSI-8 Magenta cartages which has been refilled somewhere between 30 to 70 times each has started shedding some material from the output foam of the cartage, which is insolvable with the cleaning solutions we are using. If that is so, then a back flow could possibly wash enough out of the screen to again pass ink.

Understand that this is only a guess, as it would take a microscope of high power to see if this is true by examining the screen. I can visualize such particles locking into the screen forming a mat in time which can block the screen. If so would prove that the screen is doing its job of protecting the nozzles.

Perhaps it is time to retire my cartages and start with fresh ones.

Jack

 

[aaloeb]

Hello Inkjet Master. I have read that others have used hot water and solvent, in fact it was isopropyl alcohol I used. I have rescanned the checkpattern, so I hope it's better. I have written at the picture what I mean. It is the gab in the 3eBK pattern. I think the other colors are ok, when I look at the pattern.
[url]http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/uploads/thumbs/2986_nozzlecheckb.jpg[/url]

Last news. I gave it up and bought at new printerhead, and my printer is now as god as new and it was obvious that the printerhead was worn because now all the colors are much more clear when I run the nozzle check. I do not know the durability of a printerhead.

 

[Zap]

Update:

(from post on 6/9/2008) As a last resort with nothing to loose, I cut off the wire screen at the magenta input and found that the channel was absolutely clear. The screen was so plugged up that there was only one tiny spot in the screen which would let light through when the piece of screen was held up to a strong light. I have not yet discovered what would desolve the ink blocking that screen. But I did make another discovery which I am now going to pass on.

Now without that screen in place, there is nothing to press against the foam outlet port of the cartage, so no ink could flow by capillary action as it should into the nozzles. The print head is of no use at this point so there was nothing to loose. So I said to myself, what if I put a piece of felt in place where the wire screen had been? I thought that it would press against the foam outlet just as the wire screen did, So I cut out a round piece of thin felt using a leather punch which had a punch of exactly the right size to fit. (my wife had a bag full of thin felt pieces laying around)

It worked. Now the magenta ink flows freely to the nozzle, but does not appear to send too much ink, It now prints Ok.

There is nothing to hold that little piece of felt in place, no glue was used, and it would be easy to dislodge it, but on removing the magenta cartage a couple of times, I found that the little felt piece stayed in place.

Now I am not recommending that anyone do any of the above, and I only report it to expand knowledge. It is obvious that the felt, while it does pass the ink through, could not possibly filter to the very small particle size that is necessary to insure the nozzles would not plug up by large particles. Such an action could only be a very last effort before throwing the print head away, It could work long enough to finish a print job while waiting for a replacement print head.

Jack

Update: Printer = ip4200 canon

Since I replaced the fine metal screen on the print head for my Magenta, with a piece of felt, I have been printing since June with it. There is no sign of any nozzle being plugged up.

My understanding is that that silver metal screen is the first defense of, and filtering of, any particle passing which would be large enough to not go through the jet holes. Since the screen was plugged up and would not dissolve as ink would, or blow out with compressed air, I can only assume that what plugged the screen could have been particles of foam, or dirt.

Since the felt that I used in place of that fine screen is by nature extremely coarse, there is virtually no filtering at all, but the felt only acts as a method of wicking the ink from the cartage to the print head jets. Yet there has not been any sign of any of the jets of the magenta plugging. It has been printing good ever since.

Now I do not recommend this type repair except as a last resort, for sooner or later it will cause a permanent failure of the print head. But it has been working for about three months now without additional problems. It was either throw away the print head or this.

Just an update for anyone who might be interested.

Jack

 

[Darth]

I have a Canon pixma ip5000 which has been printing perfectly until now. I first noticed missing streaks in letters, so I did a nozzle check, and cleaning. The nozzle check first showed missing areas, but cleaned up after the cleaning cycle, but the streaks kept appearing in my letters. I then noticed horrible banding in black and white pictures also. Here is a copy of my nozzle check and a photoshop print of a completely black circle. I refill my OEM carts with MIS ink, but tried a new MIS cart with no change,

 

[qwertydude]

What you have is a flow problem not any sort of clog. You can try putting some windex on the outlet of the cartridge and letting it soak for a few minutes to see if it helps it flow. I've found that sometimes some cartridge's foam don't play well with different inks. If you want to homebrew a really high flow ink you can add a little bit of a chemical called Triton X-100, it's a surfactant and is very concentrated, you'll only need the minutest pin prick of a drop in a whole bottle of ink. But even I didn't need to resort to that, I just put a little dish soap in my ink and it flows as fast as I need it to.

 

[Darth]

What you have is a flow problem not any sort of clog. You can try putting some windex on the outlet of the cartridge and letting it soak for a few minutes to see if it helps it flow. I've found that sometimes some cartridge's foam don't play well with different inks. If you want to homebrew a really high flow ink you can add a little bit of a chemical called Triton X-100, it's a surfactant and is very concentrated, you'll only need the minutest pin prick of a drop in a whole bottle of ink. But even I didn't need to resort to that, I just put a little dish soap in my ink and it flows as fast as I need it to.

This happened all at once. I had been refilling the same OEM carts for years and I thought they might have been refilled too many times, so I used a brand new MIS cart, and it didn't change.

 

[ghwellsjr]

I'm going to guess this is an ink flow problem inside your print head. This was already discussed by Grandad35 on post #7 of this thread where he used a straw to force cleaning solution into each color of the print head. Since then, other similar techniques have been suggested. See this post and read the whole thread for a complete discussion:

http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=27841#p27841