Is my i850 ready for the thrash?

[Angela]

Hi there,

I'd like to revive this thread, because I'm having the exact same problem. It's not quite clear to me what the conclusion of the tales above was. Was rbridd's printer head dead for good? Thomas made some good points, I thought, and my own thoughts ran in the same direction. Unfortunately he seems to not have told the end of his story.

I have the same printout pattern Thomas had, only concerning the cyan. My printer is an i550 - a few years old.

I cleaned the heads, I deep cleaned the heads, I replaced the cartridsges and soaked the print head in window cleaner and water (thanks for all the instructions - I already spend an evening reading here a few weeks back).

I'm not sure what else to do. Any advise? I've since continues printing and taken the cartridges out and put them back in, but nothing has changed whatsover.

 

[rbridd]

Yes.
My print head was dead, and after trying all the advice on here and elsewhere, I never managed to recover it.

The price of a new printhead was almost as much as a new printer, so I reluctantly ditched the i850 and bought a Pixma i4200. This produces prints about the same as the I850, but is slightly more expensive to run.

My i850 print head died after I started using non-canon ink. Coincidence? I don't know.

If I didn't have a need for photo printing, I'd buy a colour laser, as thattechnology now seems mature and inexpensive.

 

[Angela]

Thanks so much for replying and confirming my suspicion. My printer is three years old - might not be worth the expense of a new print head either.

And it's interesting you are mentioning the non-Canon ink. I've always written it off as a coincidence, but my printer, originally totally reliable, has been behaving erratically ever since I started using non-Canon ink. Though the occasional frustration was made up for by the substantial savings.

I just bought a new scanner, so I'll look for a printer that does well with photo printing this time.

Thanks again!

 

[jdill26]

FirstPostNewbie:
Canon i560 M & C heads plugged last nite. Spent the eve reading posts. Event began with M & C carts going empty(not dry) and my replacing them with PrintPal (my usual supplier) carts.
After many Cleans and Deepcleans and 30-40 pages both sides,tops & bottoms, I went shopping, came home ready to buy a new Canon!
Then I remembered a flea market Refiller Supplier, during his demo, had told me to clean heads with Hydrogen Peroxide. I am not a refiller but retired Chem Engr that I am, it stuck in my mem. So, here's what I did:
Bought new CANON M & C carts at Walmart.
Popped in new carts and repeated tests; all failed.
Removed M&C carts.
Put 1/2 inch of H2O2 (drugstore in brown bottle -to keep UV from blowing up bottle) in paper cup.
Dipped Quetip in H2O2 (two-three drops), soaked Magenta P/H and lightly scrubbed it (unlikely that had any effect).
Repeated this instruction with a CLEAN Quetip on the Cyan head.
Replaced Canon M & C carts
Ran Clean Cycle and got OK report. Did alignment and got better report. Did my Personal Color Test (on WordPad with font Accord Heavy SF 48 point) "This (in Red) is a real (in Green) color test (in Yellow) page (in Blue) black (in Black)"
The dye in the pigment-less carts is an organic material and when the water is evaporated, it leaves a solid residue.
Solvents like trichloethelyene, alcohol, windex, with or without ammonia are really the wrong way to attack the problem. Bleach (hypochlorite) is too strong and leaves a salt residue (corrosive). But my vendor's suggestion of Hydrogen Peroxide is just the ticket. It oxidizes the dye to some soluble compounds and leaves only H2O as a residue.
Anyway, it worked.
I have made copies of the perfect cleaning and alignment charts and my personal color chart for my Binder for future reference.
Cheers.

 

[jackson]

To clarify for me, did you remove the head and work on the ink inlet from the tanks or the output nozzle end?anyway, glad it worked.

 

[jdill26]

Jackson:
I did not remove the heads. I couldn't see how to do it without breaking something. I merely removed the carts and dropped a swabfull
of Peroxide soln on the head and blew it through with an air duster plastic pipette tube and repeated on the other head with a clean swab.
How do you remove the heads in an i560? I looked in the forums for some images to no avail.

 

[Nifty]

jdill26, very great first post... welcome to the forum!

I think this is the first I've heard of using Hydrogen Peroxide to clean clogged nozzles. I'm really glad it worked for you. The only thing I'd suggest to people wanting to try this is to go through the stages of flushing with distilled water, then moving onto more robust cleaners. I've had a few stubborn plugs that cleaning cycles couldn't fix and flushing the nozzles with distilled water fixed things right up.

Thanks again for the post! I know we all appreciate having some chemical engineers on the forum.

 

[jackson]

Jackson:
I did not remove the heads. I couldn't see how to do it without breaking something. I merely removed the carts and dropped a swabfull
of Peroxide soln on the head and blew it through with an air duster plastic pipette tube and repeated on the other head with a clean swab.
How do you remove the heads in an i560? I looked in the forums for some images to no avail.

Thank you for the response.I don't know how to remove the head, I was interested in the methodolgy as this is the first time I have seen a technique which did not involve a lobotomy on the printer.The fact that you could clear the block without the head removal indicates to me that your less invasive procedure (no risk of dropping the damn thing) has promise for the IP3000 et al.