Magenta problems Pro9500

[rodbam]

I really can't remember so I read through the start of this thread & it seems I only started flushing the cart after the problem raised its head. So maybe it was just the carts going slightly wonky. As far as I could tell the only problem the carts had was a hard to see magenta smudge near the black lines in a nozzle check & printing my colormunki charts because I couldn't notice anything wrong with my photo prints.
I will refill one of the bad carts & try it again because without the problems printing the munki charts I doubt whether I would have noticed anything wrong.
So really we have nothing much to go on for doing anything different because it looks like the two magenta carts both developed a slight problem on their own & we don't know what that problem was, except a new OEM cart fixed the problem & is still OK after two or three refills.
I wonder if the magenta carts form a sort of sludge on the inside of the sponge making the ink delivery wonky whereas the other colours are cleaner on the sponge. I wonder if I should open one of the dodgy carts to have a look.
No other carts have been flushed. I just refilled with IS inks which mixed with the OEM inks when the Canon inks got low.

 

[websnail]

I really can't remember so I read through the start of this thread & it seems I only started flushing the cart after the problem raised its head....

...it looks like the two magenta carts both developed a slight problem on their own & we don't know what that problem was, except a new OEM cart fixed the problem & is still OK after two or three refills.

Still very useful diagnostic information though so appreciate you going back over things...

I wonder if the magenta carts form a sort of sludge on the inside of the sponge making the ink delivery wonky whereas the other colours are cleaner on the sponge. I wonder if I should open one of the dodgy carts to have a look.
No other carts have been flushed. I just refilled with IS inks which mixed with the OEM inks when the Canon inks got low.

I haven't checked this with the Pixma PGI-9 inks but I am aware that the Magenta pigment inks for Epson are usually the ones to show signs of "clogging" before others in CIS systems and the like and is likely due to the concentration of pigment in them. So you may indeed have some substance to your suggestion that the cart inlets are getting "sludge" as you put it. One possible pre-emptive strategy with your new cartridge is to take the cartridge out every few weeks, put a transport clip on it and then give it a vigorous shake to ensure that the ink is thoroughly mixed and not suffering from any sort of separation. Alternatively it might be worth using the modified flush clip to evacuate and then refill the cartridge a few times with the existing ink to flush the ink back and forth through the sponge.

Unfortunately the design of the clip makes it difficult for the ink to flush along the whole sponge so the latter approach may not be as effective as we'd want but it certainly can't hurt either.

Be interested to see how this pans out long term and whether you manage to return one or more of your problem carts back to working order again.

.. and yes, if I'm honest I'd be interested to see what a dissection would provide in terms of info' but nobody's pressuring you there in case you look like something out of a CSI episode by the end

 

[rodbam]

Yes the magenta rings a bell like you say Martin. I will cut one of the carts open & have a look so watch this space. Well don't sit there watching because I'm notoriously slow at doing things

 

[The Hat]

I did have a problem with two of my carts but mine were the matte black, the ones I most frequently refill, but after a good rinse in fairy liquid and warm water using one of my Refill clips, everything is now back to normal. (See post #9)

I haven’t had this same problem crop up again and have refilled these same carts at least a dozen times without having to rinsing them again, I use both PGI-9 and PGI-72 carts in my machines.

I do store my entire cart stock with the clips facing upwards and give them the odd shake weekly; the carts in the printer are quite safe to leave for weeks on end because the printer takes good care of all their maintenance needs.

 

[palombian]

> I do store my entire cart stock with the clips facing upwards

Hat, this confuses me, as far as I remember Canon advises in the 9500 technical manual to store the cartridges with the opening downwards.

As you all I am still struggling with magenta (and sometimes cyan) and tried all cleaning methods, except the vacuum from Mikling.

I observed that the problems are less or unexistant with high quality settings where the printhead makes many passes. At first a was thinking that if the cartridge could not deliver enough inkt, that the problem would be worse with high quality settings (and that the reason should be elsewhere), but I can imagine that the ink flow is lower with many passes, and that eventual dips could be masked by the next pass.

This could be the reason why my magenta cartridges are just acceptable on my MX7600 at high quality, and flawless on the 9500 (were there are much more passes for the same quality).