New i960 printhead: no output at all!

[jackson]

... 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.

I think there is always ink at the print head (unless the supply is blocked).
Seems to me that the initial 'pull' from the clean cycle charges the system.The only thing keeping the ink from flowing out of the system is that the system is in balance.
Note my own experience of trying a refill in situe pressure change as i introduced ink and air through the refill hole allowed the ink to run out of the head.
I think the firing command is to heat the nozzles and so expel the ink.

 

[mikling]

Guys, the cleaning cycle sucks the ink down passages like through a straw. At the end of the straw sits something like a mesh ( the printhead nozzles) sitting right beside each opening of the mesh resides a small heater.
So the printer pulls ink down through the straw and mesh when it does a head cleaning. After this, the system depends on capillary action and the weight of the column of ink to supply the printhead chambers at the end of the straw. The normal supply of ink to the printhead is by a wicking action but the cleaning process involves sucking action... strong I might add. Other than that the ink just sits there balanced between wanting to drip and being held up by capillary action/surface tension.
The IC is located behind the contact board. This IC has a decoding action of directing the pulses to each chamber. All the electronics is waterproof BUT if water remains on the circuitry sometimes you get some stray resistances and capacitances which may give you a defective head signal. This disappears once the moisture dries out or is displaced. So no permanent damage is done by water.
The small heaters instantly heats and boils the ink causing a localized pressure buildup and thus expelling ink. So ink ALWAYS sits at the nozzles ready to be fired out by the heaters driven by the electric pulse. As long as more ink can creep down fast enough through the wicking action.... thus the critical aspect of ink supply from a properly functioning cartridge.
If you detect ink at the nozzle output, and for some reason the a complete set of heater are not firing. Then repair is intrinsically out of your hands except for cleaning the contacts on the head carriage and printhead.

It could be a destroyed or burnt out IC on the printhead, or it could be faulty electronics on the mainboard on the printer or even a bad ribbon cable. All of these are not easily repairable but replacement would be called for. The printhead replacement is simple BUT I repeat BUT I have run into a situation where I experienced a faulty mainboard that simply keeps burning out heads placed into it. I suspect it is overdriving the IC on the printhead. So be careful if you just keeping popping heads in and blowing the IC on the printhead. The mainboard is worth the price of a new printer at discount so I wouldn't bother with that.

For those adventurous enough to unscrew the head be aware that there are literally thousands of fine wires in that flexible connector. There must be at least one lead for each of the nozzles in the head and these number in the thousands depending on the model. So if you do take it apart, and it doesn't work afterwards, one should not be surprised. Only IF I was expecting to chuck the head away and was prepared for that would I dare open a head up as a last resort and I have been building electronics and modding CD players for over 20 years. This is a case of a lucky person saying that I fell from a tree and feel fine and everyone starts doing it. Some are going to get hurt if they don't know exactly what they're doing.

 

[OutOFtheinkwell]

I have had some problems with my old Canon i960 which uses individual BCI-6 Cartridges so I looked at Canon printers on their company site and have been trying to figure out if I need another printer head or not. Anyway, I see that Canon has gone over to color Cartridges that have all the colors in one Cart which I don't like for two main reasons. First, they run out of one color and you have no options except to dump the whole thing if you have more ink left or not. And with my old printer it is easier to refill which saves a bundle of money plus I can thrown away one empty color at a time as needed. Finally I found the old model Canon ip6000d which uses the same Cartridges I have been using. Even so, I did notice that the printer head has a different model number in spite of using the same cartridges( carts.I have gone to canon but can't find out if the heads are the same or not. It would be nice to be able to use the same head in both as I can still order the head for my i960 but they are hard to find and cost more than I paid for the printer to begin with, but the other head is cheaper. Anyone out there have any info on this question? It seems as if the printer manufacturers are just working us on this ink pricing deal and I have heard that they even have a counter chip that shuts down your printer after getting to a set number of prints even if the printer is still good. Planned obsilesence, they call it. I call it high handed treatment. I can go to Wal-Mart and buy a lexmark with the whole package including the ink for 23 bucks. The replacement Cartridge costs 27 bucks...Cheaper to buy a new printer when the ink runs out and stack the old ones in the garbage room...crazy huh? Thanks in advance, we need to stick together. Me

 

[Lilla]

OutOFtheinkwell, Hi! I have a i960 too; I faced the same decision a few months ago.

I considered...

o new ip6000D - I ruled it out because I didn't want the extra complexities of the LCD, etc.

o new ip4300 - I ruled it out because of the chipped carts. I could cope with refilling the chipped carts if I had to, but since I have the i960 I don't have to.

o new print head for i960 Yes! It does all I need. I have enough carts for it, so getting new carts with a new printer wasn't important to me. I cleaned my cartridges using A Technique to clean Canon BCI-6 cartridges by Grandad35 before using them in my new print head.

www.Inkcessories.com this is the place most people on this forum buy the new print heads. Good service, Good prices, and FREE shipping.
i950/i960 print head QY6-0043 $80
ip6000D print head QY6-0050 $55
ip4300 print head QY6-0061 $80

 

[on30trainman]

o new ip6000D - I ruled it out because I didn't want the extra complexities of the LCD, etc.

Hi Lilla,
Just was wondering what you mean by the complexities of the LCD on the ip6000D. I have that printer and never even look at the LCD. Bought it because I wanted an non-chipped Canon to back up my older ip4000. Just run everything for the ip6000D from the desktop like I do the ip4000.

Steve W.

 

[Lilla]

o new ip6000D - I ruled it out because I didn't want the extra complexities of the LCD, etc.

Hi Lilla,
Just was wondering what you mean by the complexities of the LCD on the ip6000D. I have that printer and never even look at the LCD. Bought it because I wanted an non-chipped Canon to back up my older ip4000. Just run everything for the ip6000D from the desktop like I do the ip4000.

Just that it's one more thing that can break, more wires and stuff inside if you want to open it up.

Lilla

 

[OutOFtheinkwell]

This might be a silly question but! What is the best way to store FULL Ink Carts? I have 50 or more and they are all laying on their sides. Is this ok or would it be better to stand them up in the same position they will be, IN the Printer..Thanks....Regards from outoftheinkwell.

 

[mikling]

50 refilled or empty?

 

[OutOFtheinkwell]

My Canon i960 prints all colors except magenta. I have cleaned the printhead with the usual software program and also by removing the head and running warm water over it, letting it dry and blowing it out with a can of compressed air. Same results...no magenta. Do you think it is time for a new printhead? And If my purge tube was blocked wouldn't that effect all the colors...Thanks, outoftheinkwell.

 

[Trigger 37]

Outofthe inkwell,... Be very careful if you are trying to clean the printhead. I killed both the Printer and Printhead because of the same problem you are having,... Magenta would not print at all. Now the printer is dead. Got to this link and you can read more details on what I did. http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=1822

Lillia also has a I960 that has clogged problems and here approach is more patient. She is soaking the printhead on paper towels and using drops of Windex every day. It is a very slow process but she feels she is making progress

What every you do don't get any water behind the 69 contact circuit board on the printhead. There are IC circuits behind there that apparently can be damaged. None of this is absolute because no one has done an Autopsy on a totally failed set of components.

I did some very aggresive cleaning of my printhead and it never did any damage. Once I did the major disassembly of the head, and cleaned it with Windex, water, and 90 psi air hose,.. I got it clean. When I put it back together, I must have had some water in the IC circuit area that screwed up the printhead and the printer main circuit board.

I have put this project in the back room now as I have dozens of other things I need to work on. Maybe someday I'll go back to it and try to find out what really happened,.. but right now it is a waste of time.

One last comment about your post above. There is no way a different printhead will work in the i960. The PC main board is coded to look for the correct printhead by part number that is built into the EEProm in the Printhead. As far as buying a Lexmark because it is cheap,... That would be the biggest mistake you've made this month. They are junk, and there printheads are hard to refill, and they don't hold 1/4 of the ink that a Canon Ink tank holds. ASk Lillia,... I'll bet you can sell your old i960 to her even with the bad magenta printhead. You must not be doing any serious printing if your considering going to Lexmark.... anyway,... good luck on what ever you decide to do.

I hope you have better luck.