Maybe my IP6600 gem still needs some polishing

[PeterBJ]

@Hogwild If you use the cassette for plain paper only and use the rear feed tray for photo paper the printer will work much better. The instruction manual might state that the cassette can be used for photo paper, but the paper pick up rubber rollers become harder with age and lose some grip. This can cause problems with feeding photo paper from the cassette even if feeding plain paper works flawlessly from the cassette.

The red arrow in the druckerchannel.de photo shows a gear to be turned to unlock the print head carriage. It has got nothing to do with the purge pad. I have now marked the purge pad with a green arrow. It is perfectly normal for the purge pad to become black again after a little use. Ink is sucked through this pad and mixing all inks will produce black or a very dark colour. The purge pad turning black shows that the purge unit is working.

 

[stratman]

there may be 10 possibilities, but I'd appreciate getting help in which order to try them.

That is what we have been posting and why I recommended you review the thread to see what you should try. Specific recommendations have been made. You have chosen to not do certain things recommended. Your prerogative but not conducive to a speedy resolution to your issue(s) and may lead us into chasing our tails. Try these recommendations and then post back with results as suggested.

I highly doubt the printer driver files are corrupted.

Probably not, and it may not make sense, but this suggestion has fixed issues for others. It is a "Hail Mary pass into the end zone" of sorts. It is not an attack on your abilities but an acknowledgement of the potential for applications to sometimes break for no apparent reason or of your doing.

Is the nozzle check normal? If so, why is your spreadsheet not as you expect?

The print head and ink/cartridges are probably OK if the nozzle check is appropriate. Still, some issues, like ink starvation (lack of ink where it should be because the ink is not flowing properly from the cartridge), may not present until sufficient printing has occurred to exhaust whatever is left in the print head nozzle channels.

An appropriate nozzle check but altered colors in your prints may have nothing to do with the print head but be due to cartridge malfunction, the paper used, the application used to print, the wrong ICC printer profile, altered color management settings in the printer, or your monitor needs to be calibrated.

There are more reasons but these situations, which I am repeating for the most part, are meant to help you reason and to try things that are easy (eg change paper, or use a different application, or try a different image to print, or get fresh ink/cartridges, or calibrate your monitor). The order to try a number of these options has been suggested by their presentation in the successive posts, such as my first three posts, which were specific on what to try. Some later suggestions can be done in any order you wish. Again, review the thread.

We want you to succeed!

 

[mikling]

My guess by reviewing the nozzle check and the aspect that your yellow is coming back after some use indicates that there is internal leakage INSIDE the printhead causing cross contamination. This is one mode of older printhead failure. For the time being, you can print out a page that uses Y and PM to flush out the contaminated ink. A patch of pure color that uses those inks would be appropriate. Over time this leakage may increase and its irritant will depend on how bad it becomes and your tolerance for it and the need to print purge images.
This is not "fatal" to the printer. Only a new printhead will cure it. Unfortunately, over time, this plus the need to waste more OEM ink to purge the channels will end up costing more than the Pro-100 that was suggested.
You're not alone, I have an OLD iP3300 ( same vintage as your 6600) that has Cyan coming into the Magenta. It is neither severe nor serious. A 2x2" purge block graphic of printing Magenta clears it when I want a pure color. Most times, the 3300 is used for text printing so I just let it be. I am loaded with photo printers. To create a purge sheet, just simply use excel and print a bunch of cells in yellow and other affected colors and save that worksheet. That becomes your purge graphic. When it gets worse, just increase the number of cells required to clear the yellow or other affected colors.

 

[Hogwild]

Okay, I did a purge page with yellow and magenta. I didn't know how to do PM, so I just made the Magenta really light. Is that alright?

Scanned at 400 dpi. The other colour/banding/whatever in the yellow is obvious. I noticed it gets lighter near the bottom (towards the end of printing?). Does this tell us anything? I just noticed that, while very faint, you can make out the lines in the magenta patch as well.

On the roller issue, I saw some videos on Youtube showing people turning the printer upside down moving that sliding access panel and just cleaning the rollers with a clean cloth. They swear it works. Is that advisable? Should one remove the ink before doing that?


Thanks

 

[Hogwild]

Mikling:

When you said "This is one mode of older printhead failure", does that type of failure come from usage/wear alone? Or can it come from age. Cause we seem to believe this printer has seen very little use. TPAGE=160 or so when I got it, assuming the numbers can be believed.

My guess by reviewing the nozzle check and the aspect that your yellow is coming back after some use indicates that there is internal leakage INSIDE the printhead causing cross contamination. This is one mode of older printhead failure.

 

[stratman]

A patch of pure color that uses those inks would be appropriate.

How do you get "pure color"? Besides the seemingly simpler task of printing "pure" Yellow, how do force printing of only "pure" Photo Magenta?

 

[mikling]

Mikling:

When you said "This is one mode of older printhead failure", does that type of failure come from usage/wear alone? Or can it come from age. Cause we seem to believe this printer has seen very little use. TPAGE=160 or so when I got it, assuming the numbers can be believed.

Weakness during manufacture will cause this. What is happening is that glue is used to seal across the color channels. If this glue breaks down over time or was not perfectly uniform intially, it will allow leakage across the colors.
Not really related to useage in a perfect sense but it does indicate that the bond weakens over time but is not something caused by the user. It could I image also be caused by use but the correlation with that is low.
During the CLI-8 years, many MP530s fell victim to this within a few years but the same did not occur on the MP500. This gives a clue that there could have been a period when printheads were not made as good as they could have been but they lasted past the warranty. The incidence of this phenomena appears to have decreased dramatically after the CLI-8 era...possibly indicating improved adhesives or techniques during gluing. Epson printheads OTOH have headed the opposite direction due to denser nozzle density as well as higher expansion requirements of the piezo material to gain more nozzles leading to earlier printhead failure as compared to the older printers.

 

[mikling]

How do you get "pure color"? Besides the seemingly simpler task of printing "pure" Yellow, how do force printing of only "pure" Photo Magenta?

Fortunately with yellow, using yellow is "mostly" yellow. There could be small amounts of Magenta or Cyan to compensate for the paper media chosen to bring the yellow back to yellow. If you purge with a Magenta color, you would likely be also using LC,LM and some Y during the print. As Hat correctly points out, sending instructions to print a certain color will invoke the use of other colors, the actual ones depending on media and color chosen to print and that is determined by the firmware inside the printer. To print mostly photomagenta, it is likely that you'd need to print with photo paper in the setting and a very light shade of magenta and some yellow or photocyan might be called. It is unlikely than M would be used or exremely small amounts would be.
For example telling a Pro9500 to print a block of pure black will not use 100% of Photoblack ink, in fact I believe less than 50% of the output is PhotoBlack. The same occurs in Epson K3 printers as well BTW. How printers print is far more complex than what many believe. Hence the reason why creating a good inkset is a lot more difficult and work than many think.

 

[Hogwild]

So, what do my latest test prints suggest? Are the black lines indicative of anything particular? Can I resolve the problem somehow?

 

[mikling]

So, what do my latest test prints suggest? Are the black lines indicative of anything particular? Can I resolve the problem somehow?

The only thing you can do is print more yellow and see if it eventually disappears. Thereafter, you need to calibrate when you need to print. So when it disappears, don't print for a day and see if it comes back. If it does....then you know what the solution is and live with it.
If it does not come back, then stay away two days and see etc.
It is a slow leak that will eventually get worse.

Them's the breaks with used old printers. Like a used car with a blown ECU a couple days after purchase. You can't test for this. If the seller flushed the head out before testing, you'd never know in checking it out anyways. I've bought many used printers over the years...you just have to accept the inherent risks and the printer needs to be priced considering the risks. I 've thrown out many.