Trigger 37
Printer Guru
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Here us a question for someone that may have much more experience with Printhead cleaning. At this thread has shown, many people attempt all kinds of cleaning processes on printheads. Some work and some don't. I have one printhead that used to work rather good and I did not print color documents on it for 6 months,... only black text. Now the colors are getting really bad so I have used every bit of experience and cleaning technique I know of,... and nothing is helping. So the question is,... "If the path to a color nozzles gets blocked by dried ink and new ink (or cleaning solution) can't get to the nozzles, if we print with them such as a nozzle check pattern and some nozzles don't print, no matter how much cleaning,...does this mean that individual nozzle resistor elements can get burned out. If they are firing and there is no wet cool liquid inside of the nozzle, it seem logical that they would over heat and burn.
This could explain what happens to really bad clogs. I have had many other printheads that seamed clogged and have come back to life with very basic cleaning, or with medium cleaning. But then there are the really bad ones that won't come back at all, no matter how much cleaning or how much soaking.
It seems the only way to successfully test an individual nozzles is to have it print a "DOT" or not. My typical techniques are;-----First print a nozzle check pattern so you have a reference to start with.
1. Flush the head under strong sink water flow,.. top and bottom
2. Soak the head in 3/16" Windex or cleaning solution (heated to 140 degrees)
3. Force hot solution through the printhead using syringe and short straw over the filter screens and
watch the soltuion spray out of the bottom nozzles. Repeat this 5-6 times.
4. Soak the head in same solution overnight,.. maybe 2-3 nights
5. Dry the printhead with compressed air to eliminate all solution anywhere
6. Install in printer with Cleaning carts and run several deep cleaning cycles to prime the head
7. Print 1/2 sheet using a 3 color or 4 color test image (depends on what colors were clogged)
8. Print a nozzle check pattern and examine using a 10x magnifier. Look at and count each nozzle for each color.
9 Repeat 7-8-9 and look to see if any nozzle that was clogged before has now come back to life.
10. If there is any success, the clogs are breaking up. If not, ... it may be time to give up.
Remember, part of the problem is always the ink carts, the purge unit, and the contacts on the Printhead and carriage assembly. Bad ink flow anywhere in the path will give similar results.
My orginal question is wheather or not an individual nozzle(s) can burn out. On this current printhead, there are 512 nozzles for Cyan and 512 for Magenta and 256 for Yellow. The 512 are divided into two rows of 256 so there are 5 rows of nozzles, 256 in each row. In addition, each row of 256 is split side by side into 128 nozzles. When you see color bands print that look like Hens teeth, this tells you that one bank of 128 nozzles is not firing or at least not all of them are firing.
IF the answer is that we are burning out individual nozzles, then we need to re-think the cleaning and testing process to prevent this. For example, when I first got my printers and every now and then printed a nozzle check pattern, I didn't look at it very close,... so if one or two nozzles weren't printing I did not notice. However, if you let this small clog continue I'm sure it will build up. Cleaning cycles tend to break these small clogs up, but many of us have been warned so many times about how much ink is used up in a cleaning cycle, we tend not to do it. We also don't want to fill up the waste ink pads as everyone knows this is a lot of work to fix. So what is the solution.... I think it is going to be the use of cleaning solution ink carts every now and then. Several passes printing a 1/2 page of a test image and then the close examination of the nozzle test will tell you how good or bad the printhead it.
I'm going to try and contact Canon to see if they will give my any anwers about burning out individual nozzles.
This could explain what happens to really bad clogs. I have had many other printheads that seamed clogged and have come back to life with very basic cleaning, or with medium cleaning. But then there are the really bad ones that won't come back at all, no matter how much cleaning or how much soaking.
It seems the only way to successfully test an individual nozzles is to have it print a "DOT" or not. My typical techniques are;-----First print a nozzle check pattern so you have a reference to start with.
1. Flush the head under strong sink water flow,.. top and bottom
2. Soak the head in 3/16" Windex or cleaning solution (heated to 140 degrees)
3. Force hot solution through the printhead using syringe and short straw over the filter screens and
watch the soltuion spray out of the bottom nozzles. Repeat this 5-6 times.
4. Soak the head in same solution overnight,.. maybe 2-3 nights
5. Dry the printhead with compressed air to eliminate all solution anywhere
6. Install in printer with Cleaning carts and run several deep cleaning cycles to prime the head
7. Print 1/2 sheet using a 3 color or 4 color test image (depends on what colors were clogged)
8. Print a nozzle check pattern and examine using a 10x magnifier. Look at and count each nozzle for each color.
9 Repeat 7-8-9 and look to see if any nozzle that was clogged before has now come back to life.
10. If there is any success, the clogs are breaking up. If not, ... it may be time to give up.
Remember, part of the problem is always the ink carts, the purge unit, and the contacts on the Printhead and carriage assembly. Bad ink flow anywhere in the path will give similar results.
My orginal question is wheather or not an individual nozzle(s) can burn out. On this current printhead, there are 512 nozzles for Cyan and 512 for Magenta and 256 for Yellow. The 512 are divided into two rows of 256 so there are 5 rows of nozzles, 256 in each row. In addition, each row of 256 is split side by side into 128 nozzles. When you see color bands print that look like Hens teeth, this tells you that one bank of 128 nozzles is not firing or at least not all of them are firing.
IF the answer is that we are burning out individual nozzles, then we need to re-think the cleaning and testing process to prevent this. For example, when I first got my printers and every now and then printed a nozzle check pattern, I didn't look at it very close,... so if one or two nozzles weren't printing I did not notice. However, if you let this small clog continue I'm sure it will build up. Cleaning cycles tend to break these small clogs up, but many of us have been warned so many times about how much ink is used up in a cleaning cycle, we tend not to do it. We also don't want to fill up the waste ink pads as everyone knows this is a lot of work to fix. So what is the solution.... I think it is going to be the use of cleaning solution ink carts every now and then. Several passes printing a 1/2 page of a test image and then the close examination of the nozzle test will tell you how good or bad the printhead it.
I'm going to try and contact Canon to see if they will give my any anwers about burning out individual nozzles.