Is this the dreaded Mag. fungus???

[pearlhouse]

Not sure if these pictures make sense. I had a printhead that had gone bad and there was no bringing it back. Pretty sure the electronics were gone. So I decided to dis-assemble it to clean it better to see if I could find out where it was plugged. I laid it on an led flashlight and with the ceramic side down on the light. Then I took my camera in micro mode and took pictures of it showing the light coming through the exit ink ports. Once I zoomed in on these ports I could see a lot of dirt or fungus or blockage???.. After soaking the head in a 50-50 mixture of bleach and water for two days I took more pictures the same way as before. Walla all the exit ink ports look like they are clear of whatever was blocking the ports.

 

[pearlhouse]

This head was deader than a doornail... That's why I took it apart...
But it does look nice and clean now...
The first pic has the clog and I see it is not very good unless you have a way of blowing it up. If needed I could send another one if it will help///

 

[The Hat]

Smashing Pics @pearlhouse, it’s just a pity that the head is all ready shot, now that you’ve had the head apart it may not be a good idea to test it in the printer again, you might in fact do damage to your logic board..

 

[PeterBJ]

I have also experienced something similar. I think this iP3600 print head was ruined by the "magenta fungus". I found some pictures I made using an inexpensive 35 mm negative/colour slide scanner, which is not much more than a glorified webcam. As the print head had already failed electronically, I took it apart to scan the ceramic plat with the nozzles. Here is the nozzle plate, it can be seen that the two magenta nozzle rows are partially clogged by something magenta:

And here is a crop of one of the magenta nozzle rows in full resolution, I think something cotton like can be seen:

Once I zoomed in on these ports I could see a lot of dirt or fungus or blockage???.. After soaking the head in a 50-50 mixture of bleach and water for two days I took more pictures the same way as before. Walla all the exit ink ports look like they are clear of whatever was blocking the ports.

I've got more printers that suffered problems with print heads and fungus, both with regular and photo magenta and regular cyan. I know that there is a high risk of loosing the printer involved in Chlorine bleach flushing or soaking, but it seems it works in dissolving the blockages so maybe it is worth trying?

 

[SuperareTech]

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but why does fungus affect magenta and nothing else?

 

[PeterBJ]

I think I have experienced the problems with both magenta and cyan, so I think magenta is not the only affected dye, but the most affected dye.

Here and here are threads with more info about the fungus, started by @mikling .