Pixma MP970 colors are off

[Dracus]

Hello fellow members!

1. A few days ago, my 6-year old Pixma MP970 start printing with the colors off. It is especially evident when printing black text NOT in Grayscale mode, i.e., using Color Black cartridge: the text is not black, but have a very noticeable shade of red. Please see the nozzle check page scan for details. Grayscale printing is perfectly normal.
2. The following actions were performed: built-in nozzle cleaning and deep nozzle cleaning (multiple times each), print head alignment, after that I've cleaned the printhead manually under gently flowing water, then placed it in the water of the very low level for four hours, then let it dry overnight on soft tissue paper. After that I've performed several deep nozzle cleaning again.
No effect.
3. All cartridges are full and original. I've also tried to replace Color Black (CLI-8BK), no effect.

To be honest, I don't even know what the problem might be.
I'll be very grateful for any advice.

 

[The Hat]

Hi @Dracus, just looking at the nozzle check and I reckon your print head has suffered an electrical failure.

You have already carried out a lot of maintenance on the head in and out of the printer and there is probably nothing else you can do with it.

You can however leave it to soak in 5 cm of pure window cleaner overnight but you must thoroughly dry it in a warm place for an hour or two before using it again.

This probably won’t bring back the cyan fully but you might as well try because there are no more print heads available, even in Moscow, but you can still use it for text only printing, sorry we couldn’t help...

 

[Dracus]

Hi @The Hat , many thanks for the explanation and advice!
I will try that.
Btw, is there really no place anymore to buy original Canon printhead for MP970? Not even online?

 

[The Hat]

@Dracus, the MP970 is a great printer but without a replacement head you’ll have to let it go, there are only reconditioned heads on-line and most of them don’t work, a big waste of money...

 

[PeterBJ]

@Dracus I have two Canon MP 970, one with a very clogged and defective print head that was ruined by bad ink with microbial growth, and another that prints perfectly but has a defective casing with a missing paper out door. I intend to move the good printer into the good casing. It would be much easier to just swap print heads, but a defective print head might damage the logic board and a damaged logic board can damage a print head, so I will not risk the good print head.

This is what the nozzle check should look like:

It can be seen your problem is mostly regular cyan, the nozzles seem to be clogged. The CLI-8 BK appears to be 100% OK. The print head might still be electrically OK. and might be saved by more cleaning. For cleaning a window cleaner with ammonia or "pharmacist's cleaning solution" is recommended. See this.

I have lost more than one Canon print head due to microbial growth in ink that might have become too old. I have not been able to unclog print heads clogged by growth.

I wonder about the "CPY-8MK" cartridge, this is not the proper Canon name for the dye black cartridge, the proper name is "CLI-8 BK" even in Russia it as the Latin lettering name seems not to be translated. See this. Bad quality 3rd party cartridges have ruined many Canon print heads. Here is how the Canon OEM CLI-8 BK cartridge should look:

I have found many good Canon printers at thrift stores and flea markets, my "newest" and working MP970 was priced DKK 75 = 10€ . You might be lucky to find a good canon printer that is OK or only needs a little cleaning for a low price.

 

[Dracus]

@PeterBJ thank you for the information and advice!

"MK" was just a typo, thanks for pointing it out. The cartridge is CLI-8BK, of course (just like on your photo).

I will try to clean it again, as you recommend.

 

[mikling]

I would say the Cyan is possibly clogged but not a normal clog. It is dried ink inside the nozzle chambers..possibly on the walls.
I left an mg MG6320 in a storage facility for over a summer and had similar issues subsequently. Patience over weeks of soaking and actually using the printer eventually restored everything. It is perfect now. You might also want to consider a "cleaning" cartridge as well as that method is safe to use vs. forced pressure methods...which can also be tried with some level of risk of damage.

How old is the cartridge inside the printer? If it is old, then sometimes even with OEM carts, the electronic level is wrong as the ink inside the cartridge might have actually dried out! I've bought a few used printers with OEM carts in them and despite the ink level indicating 25% remaining, they were empty and pretty dry......dried out in storage after many months or years of no use.

Good luck, I really think and hope this nice machine is salvageable.

 

[Dracus]

Thank you @mikling !
The cartridges are all brand new.

 

[mikling]

Thank you @mikling !
The cartridges are all brand new.

Yes, but what was in there before ( empty or old or combination?) and was there a period of no color printing? if so, that is the likely cause of the clogging.
Whenever you see a nozzle check that shows a concentration of color that is darker than a normal nozzle check it is indicative of some concentrated color. That can happen two ways. The jet is coming off at an odd angle thereby printing close to another dot making the appearance of a darker color but that is hard to see so it is unlikely. The other indication is that there is highly concentrated ink that is dissolving as the ink is being used or as the liquid one goes and into the nozzle. Sometimes, just printing some more will actually clear the problem and in the case above, that was the only way. No amount of soaking etc. was able to melt it away for some reason. It sounds dangerous to print to clear but that is what I ended up doing to fix it. I know it goes against the safety of no printing but.....it works and I have recommended similar to some others that cleared up their problem. The key thing to recognize is if the nozzles are printing. However in your case, you need to get the C going again. The C might show dark lines after you get it going again. The BK looks like it needs some printing to smooth it out.

The other thing is to recognize is that this printhead has 5 as well 1 picoliter nozzles. I have found that the 1 pl nozzles tend to end up clogging first from no use or real drying. I would not be surprised if the 1 pl nozzles was not used when printing color on plain paper. PeterBJ, if you have a manual it might indicate under what media settings, which color inks are used and not used. This is something I've never taken a good look at. The media setting can sometimes turn off and on certain colors and not all colors are used in printing on all media.

 

[Dracus]

@mikling Yes, there was little use of color printing during the last half-year or so. I also have to admit that I did print sometimes with C, PC and/or PM empty... I print mostly on regular paper.
Can the prolonged soaking in a window cleaner damage somehow its ability to print pigment black? Even if it won't work as a photolab eventually, I still want to use it as a regular printer for texts etc. while it's working at all.