Ip3000 PGB spotty again

[kanonvater]

Greetings all. Back in March, I replaced the printhead on this 3000 with what may have been the last new one here in the states, mostly to clear up problems with color cross contamination.

The new printhead also fixed a few spotty missing segments in the PGB.

The dye color is still working great, but now the PGB problem is back.

I ran 3 black-only cleaning cycles. All that happened is that some of the gaps (not all) moved around.

With the drain sheet at almost 80%, I don't want to do too many more of those, unless I'm sure it will fix the problem.

Here's the purge unit (the photo is from my earlier thread, before I replaced the printhead). Can anyone tell me, which is the black section?

Right now I'm looking for ideas of where to go next.

Cleaning out of the printer, in distilled water or Pharmacist's Solution?

Flush and refill a PGB cart? (I have no idea how old my 3e carts on hand are, could be many years.)

Keep using the PGB even with the missing segments? How likely is that to overheat the printhead?

Give up using the PGB and just run the printer in RGB all the time?

I'll appreciate any suggestions. Thanks.

 

[PeterBJ]

I ran 3 black-only cleaning cycles. All that happened is that some of the gaps (not all) moved around.

I have experienced the same moving clogs. But clogs don't move, instead this is a symptom of ink flow problems. I suggest to flush and dry the BCI-3e cartridges and make a new refill with new and fresh ink. Do only print nozzle checks until the problem is solved.

Continuing to print with clogged nozzles may lead to the nozzles burning out as the ink is a needed coolant. When nozzles start to fail a total electronic failure of the print head might follow soon.

BTW are the cartridges Canon OEM and what refill inks do you use?

The pigment ink section of the purge unit is covered by a narrow rectangular porous pad. The pad covering the dye section is almost quadratic in shape.I have added an arrow to your photo showing the pigment purge pad.

I hope you get the printer going again and when necessary the ink absorbers can be washed and reused. Here is an excellent druckerchannel article in English about changing the ink absorbers. The article is about an iP4000 but does also apply to your printer.

 

[kanonvater]

Peter, thanks. Sorry for the delay in getting back to this problem.

Using an irrigation syringe press-fitted in the filling hole, I ran something over a liter of water through a recently replaced BCI-3 PGB cart. The water coming out was still just slightly grey.

I followed that with about 100ml of distilled water. Then I used the syringe with just air to blow out as much water as possible. Finally, I plugged the outlet and pressurized the cart with the syringe, to make sure I could hear air escaping from the vent.

The resulting cart doesn't look anything like the flushed ones I've seen in the youtube demos. The tank side isn't quite clear, but a bit grey. The sponge is still greyish-black.



Should I be able to get the plastic clear and the sponge white, or nearly so?

Do I just need to keep flushing?

Should I use some kind of cleaning solution instead of plain water?

Or is this good enough?

Thanks, I appreciate the help!

 

[The Hat]

Should I be able to get the plastic clear and the sponge white, or nearly so?
Do I just need to keep flushing?

Just use this wick drying method (Compliments of Ghwellsjr) to make sure most of the water has been removed and then refill with ink and the cartridge with preform just like new..
https://www.printerknowledge.com/threads/draining-a-canon-cartridge.4760/

 

[kanonvater]

Tthanks for the guidance! I flushed and refilled a BCI-3 PGB cart and fitted it just now. No improvement, sorry to say.


Note that what look like vertical bars in the color bars of the nozzle check are actually ghosts of the printing on the back of the sheet.

I ran 3 black only head cleanings, with no significant improvement.

As (maybe) a separate problem, I'm now also getting banding in the RGB output, even though the CMY in the above nozzle check looks perfect to me.

Though it's actually on plain paper, I printed the image below on the "photo paper matte" setting at 600dpi to be sure that the printer would use CMY to make black. (That DOES force CMY and turn off PGB, right?)



The service test print for RGB also looks good (but again, not for PGB):



So I also flushed and freshly-filled some CMY carts and dropped them in, hoping that would at least fix the RGB output. That MIGHT have slightly improved the output, but certainly not by much.

Again, the CMY nozzle check and service test print look great to me.

Does it look like a manual head cleaning is in the cards here? I'm always kind of uneasy when cleaning printheads manually, but I'll do it if I have to.

Maybe I could try just cleaning the printhead intake screens with a q-tip first?

If that doesn't work, do you think that it would help get the ink flowing better if I put the head in a shallow pool of Windex, then used a syringe to suck the Windex up through the head intake stems? That seems safer to me than immersing the head in liquid up over the intake stems. I'm concerned about getting liquid into the electronics. There don't seem to be any more new printheads for the IP3000.

PS: EEPROM dump shows Ambient temp=26.5, HeadC=27.5, HeadBK=30.0, so there's no apparent overheating yet.

 

[PeterBJ]

...Note that what look like vertical bars in the color bars of the nozzle check are actually ghosts of the printing on the back of the sheet...

Please only use one side of the paper for nozzle checks that are to be uploaded to the forum.

As (maybe) a separate problem, I'm now also getting banding in the RGB output, even though the CMY in the above nozzle check looks perfect to me.
Though it's actually on plain paper, I printed the image below on the "photo paper matte" setting at 600dpi to be sure that the printer would use CMY to make black. (That DOES force CMY and turn off PGB, right?)

According to page 42 in the service manual found here, printing with matte photo paper setting only uses CMY inks, no pigment black. But the uploaded print only shows banding in black and grey areas, the colours appear to print OK, and grey also appears grainy to me so it looks like pigment black is also used. Could you have used the plain paper setting?

Maybe I could try just cleaning the printhead intake screens with a q-tip first?

I think that only the pigment black ink inlet might need cleaning. I think the colours are OK. I suggest to drip a little Window cleaner with ammonia onto the inlet and wick it up with a Q-tip.

If that doesn't work, do you think that it would help get the ink flowing better if I put the head in a shallow pool of Windex, then used a syringe to suck the Windex up through the head intake stems? That seems safer to me than immersing the head in liquid up over the intake stems. I'm concerned about getting liquid into the electronics. There don't seem to be any more new printheads for the IP3000.

I agree. Water or cleaning fluid where it doesn't belong can damage the print head and logic board. Here is another cleaning method I used with success. Instead of pharmacist's cleaning fluid you can also use a window cleaner with ammonia, in the US the original Windex with Ammonia-D is popular for this purpose.

The resulting cart doesn't look anything like the flushed ones I've seen in the youtube demos. The tank side isn't quite clear, but a bit grey. The sponge is still greyish-black....Should I be able to get the plastic clear and the sponge white, or nearly so?... Do I just need to keep flushing?...Should I use some kind of cleaning solution instead of plain water?

The sponges in the BCI-3e cartridges cannot become perfectly white, but if you flush them with a window cleaner with ammonia or pharmacist's cleaning solution (with ammonia) after having flushed them with water and then flush again with water, they can become light grey. Here is a BCI-3e PGBK and a CLI-8 M dye cartridge. Notice the difference in colour. After having flushed the cartridge with water, flush it again with a little pharmacist's conditioning fluid (without ammonia) and wick the cartridge almost dry with paper towels.

The cleaned and conditioned cartridge should work like a new cartridge after refilling. But else a new OEM cartridge is the best but expensive test tool in this situation.

I wonder if the problems with pigment black is caused by an unsuitable refill ink. So which ink brand and type do you use? This thread is about problems caused by an unsuitable pigment black refill ink.

I have had problems similar to yours with BCI-3e cartridges filled with KMP-U pigment ink that works well in the PGI-5 cartridges. After having seen this I tried the Image Specialists WJ1128 that is listed as a pigment black for PGI-x20 cartridges. This ink works well in the BCI-3e cartridges and also in Canon combined sponge/printhead cartridges. This ink is availlable from Precision Colors and Octoinkjet UK.

 

[Artur5]

I believe that some problems with currently available BCI-3ebk cartridges are due to the fact that, although new and unused, probably they have been sitting in a shelf for years. In all likelihood Canon stopped manufacturing them long ago.

My three last new OEM BCI-3ebk carts required flushing, because of poor inkflow, before the original OEM ink was exhausted. Therefore the problem wasn’t related to third party products. In fact, I’ve been using PGI-5 black compatible ink in BCI-3ebk cartridges without starving or banding issues.

 

[kanonvater]

Please only use one side of the paper for nozzle checks that are to be uploaded to the forum.

Oops, sorry. That's my basic frugal nature coming to the fore. :-\

But the uploaded print only shows banding in black and grey areas, the colours appear to print OK, and grey also appears grainy to me so it looks like pigment black is also used. Could you have used the plain paper setting?

I'm quite sure I used matte photo for that print. However, I'm running Linux here with the Gutenprint driver, not Canon's, so I can't warrant that it's using the inks the same as the WIndows or Mac drivers would.

I booted up the old Win2k box and reprinted that same image with the matte photo setting, and -- no banding. It's actually a gorgeous print, if a bit greyer and cooler in color than I like.

So I think you're probably right that the posted image had PGB in it..

a new OEM cartridge is the best but expensive test tool in this situation.

That's what I had in the printer before, a new Canon BIC-3eBK! However, my Canon OEM carts came to me from various sources, none of which is Canon's online store. They could be 10 years old or more, for all I know. I wonder if I should just discard the ink in them, flush them, and refill them with fresh ink. At least the PGB carts.

BTW, dumb question, but are you supposed to shake a PGB cart before installing it? I don't think I did when I put in that OEM Canon cart..

I believe that some problems with currently available BCI-3ebk cartridges are due to the fact that, although new and unused, probably they have been sitting in a shelf for years. In all likelihood Canon stopped manufacturing them long ago ... I’ve been using PGI-5 black compatible ink in BCI-3ebk cartridges without starving or banding issues.

Last time I checked, IIRC you could still order new BCI-6 and BCI-3eBK carts from Canon's online store. But you may be right that they're new old stock from years ago. And as I said, the ones I have are probably pretty old.

Thanks for the tip about using PGI5 black in the BCI-3 carts. I may try that. Or -- could I use dye black?

which ink brand and type do you use?

I order from Precision Colors, so presumably it's Image Specialists brand.

 

[The Hat]

@kanonvater, If your problem persists then switch to a PGl-5 cart instead of the BCl-3, and I use KMP black in mine from OctoInkjet, and no you don’t have to shake the PGB cart, that only applies to other types of cart.

This is how my PGl-5 cart looks after cleaning...

P.S. KMP pigment black has never let me down, and I've been using it a very long time.

 

[kanonvater]

switch to a PGl-5 cart instead of the BCl-3

Thanks again for the idea! Is it the PGI-5 ink composition that maintains ink flow better, or is it the internal structure of the cart itself, or is it both?