My MAXIFY 5350 is on refill ink

[stratman]

@palombian , @Artur5 , and @The Hat have all been pioneers with the Maxify. Thanks for going where few have traveled and reporting your experiences.

 

[The Hat]

but that a 1 year old batch of yellow clogs a new printer worries me.

Why would a 1 year old bottle of ink just start to clog your print head, I reckon something else maybe the cause, because if it worked for 11 months, why would it stop working. Something you might have done, perhaps.. ?

 

[palombian]

Why would a 1 year old bottle of ink just start to clog your print head, I reckon something else maybe the cause, because if it worked for 11 months, why would it stop working. Something you might have done, perhaps.. ?

I never had any conservation issues with pigment ink.
Admit I could have rinsed the OEM from the cart, but since it didn't cause any problems the first time, I did what most people would do.
I have solutions but I would try to find out what happened in everyone's interest, the Maxify is one of the last refillable printers.

This remembers me the time I quit refilling sponge carts with dye inks because I was tired to recondition the cartridges (since my children didn't replace them when the reservoir was empty as I asked...).

 

[palombian]

Yellow nozzles of the new printer (5150) are slowly enhancing (a 600dpi scan is needed to see the details).
Not perfect yet but at the moment octoink.co.uk (@websnail ) LXP72Y is the "good" ink removing the "bad".
I am not amused starting this almost new printer with a damaged printhead.

 

[Artur5]

15000 DINA5 pages. This figure is the final output of the late printhead of my MB5150. Another cross in my printheads graveyard..
Yes, I’m sorry to report this sudden demise. Unexpected and annoying but this is Canonland.

All started suddenly some days ago when I printed a nozzle check after finishing my printing job, as I do usually. Oops, no magenta upper stripe at all. Not good. I did one regular cleaning of the CMY nozzles and then printed a nozzle check again, but no luck.
A deep cleaning. Let it rest some hours. New nozzle check .. same as before.
After seeing a couple of youtube videos I managed to remove the printhead without much trouble, I kept it overnight in a bowl with cleaning solution (distilled water, two drops of fairy, a tad of IPA).
The printhead was successfully reinstalled. No errors on startup, ink levels detected but, alas, magenta upper row still totally missing.
I discarded a massive and stubborn clog of all those magenta nozzles, Cleaning didn’t improve things in the least. Besides, I had been printing normally the day before and nozzle check was perfect. My conclusion : electrical damage -> printhead kaput.

What to do ?
For some time I wanted to purchase an additional set of OEM carts (80 euros), A new printhead is not that cheap. After adding VAT and shipping, it’s around 95 euro at C1-Supplies (even more expensive at Eparts.fr ).
Printhead + set of OEM carts= 175 euros.
If I purchased a new MB5150 (179.99 euro at Canon’s official store ) I’d have a brand new machine (clean waste ink pads, 3 years warranty), two sets of OEM carts and my current 2 year old Maxify as a spare.
No contest, I ordered a new MB5150 at Canon’s.
I got it last week and it’s now my workhorse machine. My old MB5150, deprived of the deceased printhead, has been stored in the box of the new one.

Second part of the story: Out of curiosity and also for the benefit of Maxify users I decided to disassemble completely the printhead to see what’s inside,
Photos and explanations to follow but, right now, I can say that I’m impressed with the innards of the QY6-0087. Much more complex than Pixma's printheads. It needs to be so because of the inkflow control system, quite simple in concept but very well designed.

 

[The Hat]

My conclusion : electrical damage -> printhead kaput.

Sorry for you loss, it’s never nice to retire any printer, but I wouldn’t have opened and used my new purchase just yet, instead I’d have used the new print head and carts and put them into the Kaput printer and carried on.

I mean there was nothing wrong the printer so why mothball it…
Sideways thinking...

 

[Artur5]

I would have had to remove the printhead form the new printer with the risk of leaving marks or breaking something. There was also the small but worrying possibility that the deceased printehad had damaged somehow the logic board of the old printer. Subsequently, the damaged board might propagate the error to the new printhead. Yes, that's very unlikely but I believe in Murphy's laws ...

 

[palombian]

Didn't I read a duty cycle of 30.000 pages for the Maxify ?

The Maxify printhead is officially not user replaceable (although after removing 2 screws you will find the same handle as in other Canon printers), so there could be a risk.

 

[stratman]

Didn't I read a duty cycle of 30.000 pages for the Maxify ?

Yes.

Duty cycle merely means how many pages of Canon's % page fill that can be printed in one month without issue when following all of Canon's guidelines. It does not mean cumulative pages printed over the life of the printer or that the printer will last beyond the warranty period.

If one deviates in any way from Canon's recommendations then all bets are off on the lifetime of the printer.

For all we know, those that use non-OEM ink (+/- aftermarket chips, +/- aftermarket cartridges) cause thermal (or electrical) micro-stresses to the print head that cause earlier failure than if using OEM ink and OEM cartridge and chips.

Then again, it could be Artur got a lemon or the Maxify has design flaws.

Not enough data.

 

[Artur5]

I don't think that Maxify printheads are flawed. You don't see here reports of angry users complaining about error B200 and similar. In fact, in my case, no error report either. ( See what I meant the other day, mentioning that all sort of weird instances happened to me ?. )
That was annoying anyway. Until then only the yellow channel had showed occasional minor clogs but magenta, cyan and black always perfect.
More strange still considering that at least 90% of my printing jobs with the Maxify were plain text. Black nozzles were, by far, the ones that endured more stress.. but you never know where is the weak link until it breaks.