Long term storage of a Canon i560 printhead

[pagebooks]

I recently used a technique that I learned about on this forum to clean a couple of printheads I'd given up for dead. They both work perfectly now. So now my problem is that I have two spare printheads to put away on a shelf. How should I prepare them for and unknown period of idleness? Obviously I want to get the ink out of them.

The technique I used to bring them back from the dead involved flushing hot water under pressure though the input ports. I could do that again, but how can I be sure I get all the water out before storing them?

Josh

 

[fotofreek]

Low pressure compressed air.

 

[Trigger 37]

pagebooks,... fotofreek is correct, used compressed air. Another way is just to set them on a paper towel. If there is any water in the head, it will "Wick" to the paper towel. Any small water left will dry without a problem. Put it in a plastic bag and put it away.

By the way,... all of us would love to hear the "EXACT" details of what you did to clear up your old printhead. Please post the info.

 

[ghwellsjr]

The way I do it is:

With the printhead in the printer, remove all the cartridges.

Place some Windex on the purge pads.

Place some Windex on the screens where the cartridges feed the ink into the print head.

Do a cleaning cycle.

Do a nozzle check.

Repeat until the nozzle check shows no printing.

If you are in one of those locations where Windex is unavailable, just use distilled water.

 

[Trigger 37]

ghwellsjr,.. I'm sorry but I don't like that method. What you are basically doing is using the printhead to prove you have emptied all the ink. The problem with this is that some of the nozzles will be empty while some still have ink, and you are still printing nozzle check patterns. When you print anything when the nozzles are almost dry, you run the risk of burning out the nozzles. When there is insufficient ink in the nozzles, the firing of the nozzles will heat up the printhead excessively and you run the risk of burning out a nozzles or two. It only takes one to cause serious damage to the head. Why do you think that Canon is so paranoid about printing when and ink cart runs out of ink,... they know it will burn it up.

Just rinse the ink out and let is set on a paper towel for a day.

 

[ghwellsjr]

If you are concerned that the VERY minor number of nozzle firings in a nozzle check will burn out some nozzles, then you can do something else I used to do which is make some cleaning cartridges by washing one for each color and then filling them with cleaning solution. Use the cleaning cartridges to alternate between head cleanings and nozzle checks until nothing visible prints. This will get the ink out but leave cleaning solution in. You can use canned air or paper towels to soak the cleaning solution out. Or just leave it in.

A couple years ago, I gave my sister an iP3000 which she took overseas. I had "drained" the print head by blowing canned air into the top of the print head, as Neil Slade and others suggested. She never tried to use the printer until several months ago when it wouldn't print--it only flashed some error lights. I asked her to bring me the print head when she came back recently. I put the print head in an i560 printer and it had lots of clogs, most of which were fairly easy to clean but the darker magenta would not print even one nozzle. I thought it had an electrical problem but I kept repeating cleaning cycles and putting Windex on the purge pads. During all this time, the magenta nozzles were firing but were not passing any ink. After several days, the magenta nozzles started clearing up and now it works perfectly.

Contrast that with another bad incident I had trying to clean an iP4000 clogged head where I washed the print head and soaked it in water, alcohol, vinegar and maybe some other solvents. Eventually, it quit working altogether, I believe because I put it back in the printer while the electronics were still wet with something. I have unclogged MANY Canon printheads without soaking of any kind. Some of these I have purchased on eBay that didn't even have cartridges installed! I believe the risk of damage to a printhead is greater when you try to unclog it out of the printer than when you let the printer do the work. Also, you have to be patient. It may take many days. Repeatedly letting a printhead sit on a Windex-soaked purge pad in the printer for a day at a time is, in my opinion, the best way to unclog it.

One other thing. I routinely test my cartridges, especially the pigment black by making a black "copy" with the scanner cover up so that it attempts to print a solid page of black. Sometimes, the cartridge cannot deliver the ink fast enough to print solid black and there are repeated stripes of white--no ink going through some of the nozzles for a whole page of printing. I have never burnt out a nozzle by doing any of these "risky" procedures.

 

[Trigger 37]

ghwellsjr,... In the three examples of success you have provided, each one of them have one common element,... and that is you were always "attempting" to supply the printhead with sufficient ink. The first example is a very good test. Using cleaning carts full of some liquid will keep the heads color while they are firing. The 2nd example the printhead was clearly "Clogged" but still you were supplying sufficient ink to keep the head cool. It may not be printing but the ink was there. In the 3rd example, the ink carts were "Trying to supply" the demand for the ink but just couldn't keep up. However, it did not run long before the ink carts did refill the head,... and kept the head cool.

Contrast these examples to printhing anything until the printhead totally runs dry,.. until the very last drop of color is gone from each nozzles. I will agree that your approach will "Empty the head" of all ink. I will also suggest that you run the risk of burning out the nozzles that have done dry. So the point to all of this is,.. "Why run the risk", just rinse the ink out and let it dry." Think about it this way,... just because it worked for you, is that sufficient reason to suggest it to 100's of others.

 

[ghwellsjr]

I should have been clearer in my suggestion. When I said "repeat" I meant repeat all the steps. In other words, put Windex on the purge pads and on the ink feed screens on the top side of the printhead before doing another cleaning and a nozzle check. As Trigger 37 has pointed out, you don't want to deliberately fire the nozzles without some liquid in them. Thanks for bringing this to my attention.