New i960 printhead: no output at all!

[fotofreek]

When I took the i960 printhead apart I should have followed Grandad's advice to grind away the plastic "nibs" that hold the contacts at the other end of the ribbon cable. The ip4000 and ip5000 ribbon cables may have a little more slack and not get stressed when removing the nozzle plate, but my i960 head didn't and I damaged the ribbon. The printhead wouldn't work because the ribbon cable was damaged. If you decide to take the head apart I would suggest following Grandad's instructions totally. Then you can use compressed air in the plastic body without concern about the nozzles. I did get the channel cleared in the plastic body with windex and compressed air but the head was unusable due to the damaged cable.

 

[Lilla]

When I took the i960 printhead apart I should have followed Grandad's advice to grind away the plastic "nibs" that hold the contacts at the other end of the ribbon cable. The ip4000 and ip5000 ribbon cables may have a little more slack and not get stressed when removing the nozzle plate, but my i960 head didn't and I damaged the ribbon. The printhead wouldn't work because the ribbon cable was damaged. If you decide to take the head apart I would suggest following Grandad's instructions totally. Then you can use compressed air in the plastic body without concern about the nozzles. I did get the channel cleared in the plastic body with windex and compressed air but the head was unusable due to the damaged cable.

Yes, it seems likely that the ip4000/ip6000 ribbon cable has more slack than i960 ribbon cable. There is a post on another forum (this link) regarding dismantling and cleaning ip3000/ip4000/ip5000 print heads, and I noticed that they don't grind down the nibs either.

I'm saving all of your posts on your i960 print head cleaning experience. I will do as you and Grandad say, I will grind off the nibs and go from there. I can borrow a dremel, or I can use a small drill motor with a small bit. I have an old print head out of an S800 that is totally dead that I can experiment with to decide. Again when I'm ready to explore this avenue.

Lilla

 

[Lilla]

Inkcessories has RMAd the new print head and will test it for me. If it's defective, I'll get a replacement: if it's not, I guess the problem is with my i960, somehow.

Please keep us posted on what happens.

Lilla

 

[mikling]

Hey Lilla discovered that a bad logic board blew out the electronics from two printheads on an i950.
Both printheads show show up as defective on a working i950 but show up as good on a bad i950.

From this I gather that a bad logic board can permanently damage a good printhead from the get go.

 

[Lilla]

Hey Lilla discovered that a bad logic board blew out the electronics from two printheads on an i950.
Both printheads show show up as defective on a working i950 but show up as good on a bad i950.

From this I gather that a bad logic board can permanently damage a good printhead from the get go.

Very interesting. It reminds me of two posts.

First, this post by ghwellsjr -- see post #2 this link.

One thing you could do is remove the print head and then power down the printer and see if it asks you for the print head when you turn it on and see if it's happy when you put it back in. If so, it is probably safe to swap your print head into another printer or put another print head in yours.

Second, a post that I recall reading but try as I might, I have not been able to find it again. Perhaps you or someone else will remember this post and be able to provide a link to it.

It was a post where someone suspected his problem was a bad print head, but before ordering a new print head he decided to test his print head in another printer. As I recall, the other printer belonged to a friend or relative. Anyway, he installed his print head in the another printer. The other printer didn't work with his print head. He put the original print head back in the other printer. The other printer no longer worked. His conclusion was that one bad print head, killed both printers. I don't think he put the print head out of the other printer into his printer, but like I said this is all from memory, so it could be otherwise.

Does anyone remember the post I describe above? I would love to find it, and compare it to Mikling's post.

Lilla

 

[ghwellsjr]

I've been doing some thinking and some testing. The testing involves seeing how ink flows through a cartridge. I have discovered that it is possible for a cartridge to get an air path through the sponge compartment so that no ink comes out even though the reservoir has plenty of ink in it. What if one of your cartridges were defective this way, like maybe your black or your yellow, since those two colors seem to be clogged?

If this is the case, then a new print head could have trouble getting primed because all of the vacuum pressure would go through the air leak in the defective cartridge and prevent the other cartridges from getting any ink to flow.

Swapping out your black and yellow cartridges with known good ones would validate or invalidate this theory. Whether Inkccessories determines that your print head was good or bad, and if the one they send you still does not work, try swapping out the yellow and black cartridges and see if that fixes you problem. You might even try this with your old print head.

 

[Trigger 37]

Lillia, First let me thank you for all your posts. They have helped me alot. I have an i560 that has a completely clogged Magenta head. I've made a new thread with all the details in the inkjet General forum. One of the things I did was to perform the cleaning that you just mentioned above in one of your post. The one that covers the ip3000, 4000, etc. It is basically identical to the i560 for printhead cleaning. The process was rather simple and I found the clog not where he had found his but in the ceramic part of the head. I was albe to clean it out and see daylight through the nozzles.

Here is the bad part. I put the head back together as instructed. While the flex was tight it came up without too much struggle. The bottom line is the printhead didn't work once I put it back in the printer. It immediately came up with 5 orange blinks and the Green ready light would never come on again. Canon says this is a Printhead not installed correctly code. I tried the suggestion at the Canon Support site, and I tried your suggestion on removing the printhead and then turn off the printer. When I turned it back on, it did nothing, especially didn't ask for a new Printhead. The first time I had installed it, I was able to access the print driver from the PC and select a deep cleaning cycle and actually printed a nozzle check. It was totally blank. After several tries at getting into Service Mode, which also failed, the printer still will not come "Ready", and won't communicate to the PC.

If I were you, I would continue with the slow but steady drip, drip, drip, cleaning process you are doing. I tried the drip method first but gave up when I could not get one drop of water past the Magenta nozzle. I think what is happening to my printhead is that it is very difficult to re-seal the ceramic printhead to the rubber gasket that is between the ink tanks and the Ceramic printhead. The screws that clamp these to parts together are very small and have very little torque, and so is the gasket and the tiny holes in the ceramic printhead. IF there is any leak anywhere in there, I suspect that the cleaning cycle that pulls ink can't get a vacuum to pull. Somehow it senses this and knows the printhead or something is not seated. I don't think it is anykind of electrical problem because I know I did not stress flex cable. I'm and Electrical Engineer with over 30 years experience in computer technology, and especially in Flex cables. The way this cable is attached to the printhead housing and to the 1000's of print nozzles on the Ceramic, it would be very difficult to break any connection. There is an epoxy strain relief half way between the two electrical connections so the cable can not be stressed at that point. If I am wrong about the printhead, and the only way it can detect a bad printhead is through the electrical connections at the carriage,... then some wire is broken somewhere. If I put in a new printhead, one that I know is good,.. I should be able to get the old printer to at least come ready,...i.e., a good Green light. If I don't print there should be no risk to the good printhead. Does everyone agree with that theory? I don't want to ruin a second one.

I'm looking for a lot of guidance at this point. Thanks for your help.

 

[jackson]

I think what is happening to my printhead is that it is very difficult to re-seal the ceramic printhead to the rubber gasket that is between the ink tanks and the Ceramic printhead. The screws that clamp these to parts together are very small and have very little torque, and so is the gasket and the tiny holes in the ceramic printhead. IF there is any leak anywhere in there, I suspect that the cleaning cycle that pulls ink can't get a vacuum to pull. Somehow it senses this and knows the printhead or something is not seated.
I'm looking for a lot of guidance at this point. Thanks for your help.

I have a dud i850 which has had it's head apart more than once and have not noticed any change in the symptoms.
I notice that the head securing screws have a limit depth built in, inasmuch as it's physically impossible to get the screws past a certain point because of a 'shoulder' built into the ceramic.
My cyan shows a 'garden rake' effect which has not varied through all my dismantling/unscrewing etc.
Also, many users have had plugged waste pipes with these printers.
The cleaning cycle in failing to suck ink (or draw vacuum) does not give any lamp flash indication of failure.
This printer shows poor results on 'normal', but good results on 'high' when used on plain paper.
I'm resigned to the fact that I have an electrical problem and not a blockage.

 

[on30trainman]

Trigger
You said: "If I put in a new printhead, one that I know is good,.. I should be able to get the old printer to at least come ready,...i.e., a good Green light. If I don't print there should be no risk to the good printhead. Does everyone agree with that theory? I don't want to ruin a second one."

That should be OK. When you replace a printhead (at least on my ip4000 which just got a new printhead last week) you turn on the printer, lift the lid and let the carriage move to the center so the cartridges and printhead can be removed. Closing the lid and checking the lights should be OK as long as there is no ink in the printhead and you don't try to print anything, the head shouldn't come to any harm.

I also trying cleaning the old printhead by removing the screws and lifting the ceramic head to do a more thorough cleaning. It didn't get any better. Then I tried the ultimate cleaning - an ultrasonic cleaner. That really buggered it up - colors that originally worked didn't anymore, ones that were streaked were now completely dead. I also was concerned about the seals between the head, gaskets and holder assembly. I am not sure I would do the disassembly method again, unless as a last resort. Definitely not the ultrasonic cleaning - that must have really messed up the head firing points. A new printhead brought the printer back to normal.

Steve W.

 

[Trigger 37]

on30trainman,

Thanks for your post. I guess I have to agree with you, but on the other hand if the printer has bad data in the EEprom, will it get over written if it sees a good printhead????. The entire mystery to be is,..How could a bad printhead cause this kind of problem. I'm just thinking out laud but if I take one of my good printers, take out all the ink carts, then close the cover and see if the printer comes up ready.

My other big problem is I don't know what went wrong with the printhead I took apart. It is very easy to do it and put it back together. I know I didn't damage any electrical connections, so what could be wrong? Since I took it apart the second time and looked inside,... there was ink in all the nozzles. This tells me that since the printer REALLY thought it was doing a nozzle test print, it was sending the firing commands to the printer. Since nothing printed, some electrical connection is not made. Now the question is "What could it be". Since there is no chip inside the printhead, what could have gone bad by just rinsing the whole head in water. Yes the Ceramic head was taken off,... but it was not disconnected,.. and it was just as easily put back.

I would appreciate any feedback or suggestions from anyone on this forum. Thanks in Advance.