ip4000 slowish printing

[PeterBJ]

Yes the lay-out of the paragraph regarding service mode operations in the iP4000 service manual is not quite logical. Point 5 causes confusion. It is even worse for the iP4200 service manual. Somebody did a "Copy and paste" from another manual and forgot point 5. This caused confusion and loss of info for me. Service mode operations on Canon printers have no undo function and no back-up/restore capability. That's why I wrote the warning.

1/ Service test print and EEPROM info each take one sheet of A4 or Letter size paper, meaning 2 sheets of paper is needed.
2/ For the older printers like the iP4000 service mode operations are stand alone operations and no connections to the computer is needed, but leaving the printer and computer connected does no harm. You can do as you like.
3/ Yes but it wasn't too slow, as the entry of service mode was successful. I don't know if you can do it too quickly, but if you wait for the response of the control light you will have no problems. I have rewritten my instruction for entering service mode on older Canon printers to make this more clear:

1. Press and hold the Stop/Resume button.
2. Also press and hold the Power button. After a second or two the green control light comes on,
3. Now while still holding the Power button release the Stop/resume button.
4. While still holding the Power button press and release the Stop/resume twice. Notice that when the Stop/Resume button is pressed first time the control light changes to yellow. Second time the Stop/Resume button is presed and released the control light changes back to green.
5. Now release the Power button. The power light now starts blinking and the printer does some start-up routines. When the Power light is steady green the printer has entered service mode.

To make the service test print press and release the Stop/Resume button once and notice that the control light changes to yellow. You have now selected the Service test print. Execute the command by pressing the Power button once.

When the service test print has finished select the EEPROM print by pressing and releasing the Stop/resume button twice. Notice that first time the Stop/Resume button is pressed the control light changes to yellow, second time the button is pressed the control light changes back to green. You have now selected the EEPROM print. Execute the command by pressing the Power button once.

After the print has finished, leave service mode by switching the printer off by pressing the Power button once without having made any selections using the Stop/resume button.

On an iP4000 the paper source selector switch is also active in service mode, so make sure that the selected paper source is not empty, else the service mode operations will fail and the printer start to flash the yellow warning light. If you load paper into both the cassette and the rear tray you won't risk problems caused by attempting service prints without paper.

 

[Music Image]

Thanks again PeterBJ.
OK, Ive done the 2 printouts. The speed of both printouts seemed normal. The only thing that made me a little worried was the time it took for the printer to turn off after exiting the service mode (after the last printout had well and truly finished.) I think all it was, was just the printer doing some type of cleaning cycle.

On the Service Printout, there's no broken lines or streaking or misalignment. I have 2 things I'd question though,
1/ The yellow seems a tad faint overall, but that may be just because yellow is like that.
2/ Regarding the part where there's two rows of grid pattern for each colour ... on the second row, there's a discrepancy between my printout and what the service manual shows as to what is printed out. Imagine the 4 sections, for black cyan magenta and yellow ... my printout shows:

1/ nothing 2/ light cyan 3/light magenta and 4/light black

The service manual shows:
1/ nothing 2/ light cyan 3/ light magenta 4/ nothing

Any explanation for that?

Regarding the EEPROM readings I can take a shot of the EEPROM (excluding Hex)and upload a pik if you want but here's a couple of stats, are these normal?

Head TempKB=37.5 Head TempC=36.0 Env Temp=22 FF (03 1C 84)

Ink absorber Waste amount D=034.0

I saw on line one I had no reading for CD-R sensor correction value. Im taking it by that omission it had no need to record anything because there's no errors?

 

[Music Image]

As an aside, I have fairly meticulously kept a record of my ip4000 from the get go, with such details as:

Power on - Date printed - Colour or B&W - What I printed ie Nozzle chk/Text/photo - perceived amount of total pages printed - Paper type - Document

I've also noted what ink tanks Ive changed/ brand and when.

Accounting for human error, I've allowed a margin of error. Some details would have a little more MOE than others but for most things I'd rate it as around 97% correct.

If I can interpret that printout it would be interesting to see how wide of the mark I am.

The trouble is I have to go and do some serious counting up

 

[PeterBJ]

I have not used a stop watch but I think I have observed that power on and off takes longer time when using service mode than when using the printer normally in user mode. So I think the behaviour of your printer is perfectly normal.

I don't understand the part about the service print being different from what is shown in the manual. But there are at least two versions of the service test print out, I've got two working iP4000 and they have different firmware versions. One is the same as the one in the service manual, firmware V1.06, and the other is firmware V1.09. Could this be the explanation?

Could you upload a scan or photo of the service printout? Only the part above the wide cyan/light blue stripe. I would also like to see the EEPROM print out, but only the part above the "HDEEPROM", like these two scans I have combined into one, the scanner settings are tweaked to make the yellow grid more visible. Yellow ink on white paper is difficult to see, especially in artificial light with a high content of yellow light. But there are tricks making it easier to see. Click to enlarge:



I think your print head isn't overheating, compare to the EEPROM info I uploaded. I did some nozzle cleaning to try to improve the cyan grids, before making the service prints.

Absorber value D=00.0 means that the absorbers are new and contain no ink, D=100.0 means the absorbers are completely saturated with ink and should be cleaned or replaced. You still have got two thirds of absorber capacity left.

When the iP4000 was produced CD printing with a Canon printer was not allowed in all parts of the world due to patent issues, so CD printing was disabled on iP4000's for these parts of the world, for instance in the United States. If you live in a part of the world where CD printing was locked, it can be unlocked, but you will have to do some modifications to the printer and acquire or make a CD printing tray yourself. Instructions for this modification can be found on the web, but you might need to use the "way-back machine" to find them. What is your location? Maybe your iP4000 is locked to prevent CD printing? See the service manual page 1-16 for a list of destinations, standard paper formats and if CD printing is allowed or not.

 

[Music Image]

Thanks PeterBJ for your help on this. Well that's good that the printhead doesn't appear to be overheating. (Would be nice if they told you what was normal in the service manual.)

Here's some photos below. Apologies that my Canon Camera distorts the image because of wide angle lens. If there's any way around that, I haven't discovered it. I've tried to brighten up plus increase the contrast of the images, only for clarity as all my photos on Auto came out with the background too dark, even by placing them in the lightest place possible.

On a closer look I saw that there's a couple of bent lines on the printout, which you'll see by clicking on the thumbnails. There's a couple of missed lines, but I notice on yours Peter, there's a few missed lines but no bent ones. Would that be a cause for concern?

Edited to add: OK, just re-read your post and it's the cyan ones you were talking about in your post above. I don't see any missing lines in your magenta ones.

I've had to downsize the images some, and I wont know how they'll look until I post them, so hopefully they are clear enough.

I'm from New Zealand, and I've never had to unlock my machine for printing CDs. As you can see I've done some.

Do you have a more conclusive explanation of what these codes mean? The service manual makes some of it hard to fathom.




Regarding the firmware version, I see your printout has the black (1/2 tone) grid on the bottom right such as mine has and mine is firmware 1.09 too. I've included a screenshot of my Service manual to show you what I mean. There's nothing, where our printouts show the black grid.

 

[PeterBJ]

The missing grid and problems with identifying codes in the EEPROM print out is caused by your service manual being a wrong one. It is for the iP3000, not for the iP4000. The iP3000 is similar to the iP4000 but has no photo black/dye black, hence the missing grid for dye black in your manual.

A service manual for both iP4000 and iP5000 also has the wrong iP3000 illustration. So which version is your manual? Canon service manuals are not always error free!

By comparing your EEPROM printout with mine, it looks as no CD values and no other data are missing. The explanation of codes will likely be better in the proper manual. The list of these codes is found at page 1-19 in the iP4000 service manual.

The iP4000 manual is found here. AVG Internet Security (paid de luxe version, not the AVG Free) found nothing wrong in the downloaded manual.

Did moving the printer cure the problem with the printer pausing and flashing the yellow warning light?

 

[Music Image]

Here' a couple of screenshots of the top and the bottom of S.Manual, plus index.
A quick look over showed the only time ip3000 is mentioned is in that diagram. All other references are to the ip4000.



Since moving the printer for the test printouts I haven't done anything else as I wanted to see what you recommended first. In a case of a process of elimination, my thoughts are sometimes that the order of what you do would also be important. This is the order of what I'm thinking, please correct if you think its not right:

NOTE: All these will be followed with your lorem function .pdf print out, and watching the Power lamp for orange and of course any hesitation.

1/ print out your hi-lighted text PDF that I downloaded, with the door in the "natural" position.
2/ Try (Part1[1st paragraph]) of what Martin Oreg said "I use to move the front door up and down for a while as a "training" of the bad switch... sometimes it helps sometimes not."
3/Try what Tom Hock said about drying time, if the middle slider position is incorrect. Note: I've never changed this setting before even with 3rd party ink, if that would make a difference.
4/ Defrag as the Hat has said. Note: I checked and the drive does need defragging.

If these don't work then:

5/ Somewhere on here or a link from here I read about spraying an electronic fluid which might work. Can't remember where I saw it.
6/ A toss up between Part 2 of Martin Oregs suggestion (cutting wires) and cleaning the switch as PeterBJ has said early in the thread.

 

[PeterBJ]

I must admit you are right about the manual. I checked my downloaded service manual and the one I linked to in post #16. Both have the wrong iP3000 illustration on page 1-18. If your manual has a table of EEPROM codes on page 1-19, it should be the OK for deciphering the codes. It looks like the author of the service manuals was a bit lazy and used copy and paste a bit too much.

1/ If you have got Microsoft Word I suggest you create a lorem ipsum document and save it without highlights. Then add a lot of highlights to the document and save it as a new document. You can now compare if the printer behaves in the same way when printing identical texts with and without highlights.
2/ Give it a try. If it doesn't help, then clean the switch.
3/ If you never changed this setting, it is unlikely it is the cause of the problem.
4/ That can never harm. Your computer might even become faster from defragmentation.
5/ if you use an electronics cleaner spray, only spray into the switch, don't spray on other things in the printer. Using a such cleaner was the first thing I tried, but it didn't work, so I had to take the switch apart to clean it. If you use a spray product inside your printer, never use products containing silicone. Silicone can migrate and ruin contact surfaces and cause all kinds of problems.
6/ I don't understand this. You can either clean the switch or short it, if you don't want to take it apart or if the cleaning was unsuccessful.

 

[martin0reg]

Going back to the first post..

...
The problem is, it appears to be printing slower with 3 or 4 stops per page. ..

...does this mean really slower printing speed or just interrupted printing - or both?

- printing speed depends on quality setting, you can try different settings and measure the time
- interruption is due to a bad or stained switch, so you have three possibilities: "training" the door, cleaning the switch or short the cable. Spray won't work because it won't reach the problem.

IMHO your nozzle check is okay (althoug the temps could be lower), if the printouts are as good and don't have any stripes or banding, I would surely concentrate on the switch...

 

[Music Image]

Thanks PeterBJ and MartinOreg for your responses.

@PeterBJ, regarding point 6/ sorry for not being clear. When I said "a toss up" I just meant either/or as you've have described.

Iwasn't sure if you meant a lot of hi-lighting just using yellow or more colours in general. I chose the latter and here's a screengrab: (I hope there's enough colouring ... if you think not I'll add more) It's done from LibreOffice. Word and Excel are on my other computer, which I won't use at present as there's a bad Cap.


The settings were: Colour adjustment - Auto; Print Quality - Standard; Media type -plain paper; Normal sized print on A4.

Printout #1 was the non hi-lighted text. All OK with that and that took about 4 seconds

Printout #2 was the hi-lighted text. All went as expected. There was no orange light coming on at all, there were no actual pauses where printing actually stopped. You know how the printer makes that usual ziii ziii ziii ziii noise as it prints and exits the paper little by little? ....well there were a few little differences of speed when it came to more concentration of colour. ( Hopefully I've explained that OK) Ive always known this to be normal. However, the printout took 21 seconds from the time it grabbed the paper to exiting paper so I'm wondering if that's a bit long. Anyone else is welcome to compare this with their printer.

Canon Manual says:
Black printing (text pattern) Max speed (custom setting 5): 25 ppm (iP4000)
Standard: 15 ppm (iP4000)

Color printing Max speed (custom setting 5): 17 ppm (iP4000)
Standard: 11 ppm (iP4000)

My nozzle tests took approx 6 secs

Whilst doing the hi-lighted printout I had a Low yellow ink tank warning so I changed that and lifted all the other tanks and checked their levels. Reseated all and did a nozzle test. I noticed a very very slight banding on the magenta 1/2 tone, plus a little bit of greenish tinting on those corresponding 2 little grey bars to the left. Two more nozzle checks seems to have got rid of both anomalies.

I've done no more testing , but I have defragged both partitions of HDD.

@martin0reg

"does this mean really slower printing speed or just interrupted printing - or both?"

Notwithstanding I'm not sure exactly how the printing problem I've described in post 1 correlates to the times mentioned above, I would guess just interrupted. As far as temps go, just thought I'd mention, would ambient temps make a difference to printhead temps, even minimally? We're in mid summer here but obviously I'm not going to remember exactly what the temp was when the printer was doing the pause thing. When I printed out yesterday it was about 22DegrC . Aside from all that is there any thing you would recommend to get the temperature down. Also what would you recommend as normal?