Maybe my IP6600 gem still needs some polishing

[Hogwild]

stratman:

Yeah, I think they look very similar to the wiper blades, yes. I guess I cleaned the wiper blades.

I believe I've now tried most of the recommendations, except for replacing the mentioned ink cartridges and taking apart the printer to do work on it.

I didn't buy new cartridges cause you all said that the problem was almost certainly the print head or control board, so I figured why waste more money if it won't fix the problem. I didn't take the printer apart cause one poster said I shouldn't until I tried other things. Also, I got the impression it was a rather difficult task.

I'm now getting warnings that I"m almost out of yellow ink, so tough call what to do next. Whatever I did, I'd have to buy another yellow cartridge. I'm consdering it, but not sure yet.

If I kept printing other colours that didn't contain yellow, would that starve the yellow cartridge and damage something, or would it be okay?

 

[stratman]

If I kept printing other colours that didn't contain yellow, would that starve the yellow cartridge and damage something, or would it be okay?

How do you know the color you are printing does not use Yellow? Magnification of the print may reveal Yellow. It is believed that other than nozzle checks, printing without ink can permanently damage print head nozzles.

At this point, all I can offer is for you to review the thread for recommendations made but not completed yet. (Dissembling the printer was not one of them)

 

[Hogwild]

stratman:

One of the posts mentioned something about a check/repair which require removing cover and some other stuff. I call that disassembling. You seem very literal, so maybe you don't, but I call it that. (Just sayin').

Perhaps there is something we've missed. I say this because we seemed to miss the wiper blades issue which may now be resolved.

 

[Hogwild]

Okay, I took a gamble and bought a brand new, fresh yellow cartridge. Here is a standard 4x6 photo test on some older Canon photo paper. The paper is a bit yellowed. I didn't want to use fresh paper until I was sure at least I'd have a few good prints in a row. How's this?

 

[stratman]

Serviceable given the conditions.

Your opinion on the image quality is the most important since you will be looking at your printed results. Compare it to the original image. Maybe with all fresh inks and paper not handicapped by obvious - or not - aberrations the results will be better.

Will it last? I hope it does. Time will tell.

 

[Hogwild]

So, I'm not clear exactly what you're saying. Is it clear that at the moment, there's no black or other colour contaminating the yellow, but it could soon happen again?

Does this mean I should hold off on getting another print head?

The guy I mentioned earlier who is a printer tech. offered me a free printer today. He's not sure what model it is. I guess I'll find out soon.

Serviceable given the conditions.

Your opinion on the image quality is the most important since you will be looking at your printed results. Compare it to the original image. Maybe with all fresh inks and paper not handicapped by obvious - or not - aberrations the results will be better.

Will it last? I hope it does. Time will tell.

 

[stratman]

Is it clear that at the moment, there's no black or other colour contaminating the yellow, but it could soon happen again?

Yes.

Does this mean I should hold off on getting another print head?

Up to you. If you find a genuine new or verified working print head and plan on using the printer even if the issues return then buy one. FYI -- the print heads advertised as new out of China may be refurbished in counterfeit packaging and seem to have a high rate of failure, including straight out of the box.

Good luck.

 

[Hogwild]

stratman:

Thanks again. Does this turn of events rule out the idea that the controller circuit board has gone bad, or could that still be a possibility?

If I'm not mistaken, the last photo test print above seems to have a reddish cast to it, and it also looks a bit grainy. Is there an easy way to fix those things?

I'm reluctant to buy brand new larger photo paper, cause I still don't know if this thing will work long-term. Is there a common brand that I could buy at say, Staples, that works fairly well for these printers? You know, not pro quality, but something of decent quality that is compatible-ish with this printer.

Wow! I just looked at the ink status-the black is almost half gone, and I've only printed a few pages, with not a lot of black in them. Does this model always suck ink like this? If so, I'm starting to understand why you all suggested I conserve ink and/or refill. A wild guess might be that five or six 4x6" photos might empty some of the cartridges. Is this normal?


Thanks

 

[PeterBJ]

The colours of a printed photo depends on the photo, printer, inks and paper. With OEM inks and OEM photo paper many or all Canon consumer level inkjet printers produce photo prints with a magenta cast. This is perfectly normal. It can be corrected using ICC profiles and expensive hard- and software or a simple correction in the printer driver settings might do the trick.

Here is a test image printed using an iP4300 with OEM inks on Canon GP501 paper with no colour corrections made, notice the magenta cast:

 

[PeterBJ]

A rule of thumb is that an A4 or Letter sized photo takes 1 ml of ink to print. Six 4"x6" photos should then use less than 2 ml of ink to print. But print head cleaning/priming takes a lot of ink. The printer primes the print head each time a cartridge is changed or removed and reinstalled. This priming uses ink from all the cartridges.