MX925 black out of focus on alternate directions

[adrianstephens]

My MX925 printer prints black text correctly for every other scan of the printhead (i.e. in one direction). And for the other direction, the black is split horizontally (or ghosted into two parts of approximately equal weight) separated by about 1/2 mm, resulting in an out of focus appearance.

Has anybody else come across this? Would it be fixed by replacing the print-head?

Regards,
Adrian Stephens
Cambridge UK

 

[stratman]

Welcome to the forum, adrianstephens.

Please print a nozzle check, scan it, crop it and post here. You can provide an example of your issue if you want as well, but the nozzle check is critical.

It may be an irreparable electronic failure but best to see your images first before diagnosing and making a recommendation.

 

[maximilian59]

This sounds like a damaged printhead. The nozzle test will show it in the text below the colors. Here in Germany I got a MX925 serviced by Canon with a new printhead for 89€ including cost for sending. That’s a fair price. So ask Canon support for repair.
Cheers,
Maximilian

 

[adrianstephens]

Welcome to the forum, adrianstephens.

Please print a nozzle check, scan it, crop it and post here. You can provide an example of your issue if you want as well, but the nozzle check is critical.

It may be an irreparable electronic failure but best to see your images first before diagnosing and making a recommendation.

Hello Stratman,

Thank you for taking the trouble to respond.

I can see now that I've probably leapt to a wrong assumption in my original post.
Attached is nozzle check, showing split lines for heads in the middle. Also attached is test doc.jpg showing the effect on printed text.

Regards,
Adrian

 

[stratman]

The split vertical lines, like railroad tracks, in the Pigment Black lattice is a sign of warped nozzles and is irreparable. A new print head will resolve the issue.

In the USA, Canon Sales is usually the least expensive for a print head. It is advised to buy only from an authorized Canon dealer. Print heads that have connection to China are all too often cleaned up used ones marked as new and in counterfeir wrapper and boxes. They have high failure rates.

A workaround is to not use the Plain Paper setting when printing. Using a Photo Paper setting instead will bypass the PGBK nozzles. Black is then made of a composite of the other color Dye-based inks. It may not be as deep a Black, as sharp a font, and will not be water or highlighter smear resistant.

FYI: We want to see the entire nozzle check. There may be something else going on. You cropped as asked but I meant remove only the unprinted white area around the entire nozzle check. In the end, it doesn't matter as the cure is a new print head anyways.

Let us know what you decide and how it works out.

 

[adrianstephens]

Thank you, Stratman. The rest of the nozzle check was unexciting.
I guess the next question for me to think about is whether to spend £80-ish on a head replacement on a printer that is about 6 years old, or replace the whole printer at roughly 2-3x the cost.

 

[The Hat]

replace the whole printer at roughly 2-3x the cost.

What nobody said was that this issue was cause by poor quality ink, it’s fairly common on these printers, the print head overheats causing the distortion..

P.S. have a look at the Maxify range as a replacement if you don’t want to go for a new head...

 

[PeterBJ]

Maybe this is the best offer for a printhead for the MX925 in the UK?

The MX925 uses the PGI-550/CLI-551 family of cartridges. A resetter is available to make refill easy, so you don't have to disable ink monitoring and risk ruining the printhead by printing with empty cartridges. Aftermarket cartridges are also reasonably priced. The newest TS models of printers use the PGI-580/CLI-581 cartridges for which no resetter exists making refilling more difficult and risky and OEM cartridges are very expensive and even aftermarket cartridges are much more expensive than the aftermarket PGI-550/CLI-551 cartridges.