Premature Failure Of Printhead ip4500 magenta

[nanosec]

Hi Guys,

Still working on this one, however the print head transplanted to a 3rd printer prints magenta fine, so I am investigating the purge tubes on one of the printers. **Did not test this enough to eliminate print head see other notes on this


I have pulled the pads out and have filled the pad area with windex. As of now, the pad is not emptying when lid is closed. I am trying to figure out how to detach the ip4500 from the bottom chasis to get at these tubes.

I feel so foolish for missing this one. Here's my guess. The purge pad was not clearing the print head correctly, prompting me to lose magenta on print head #1.

Added new print head and the same thing happened, causing new print head #2 to lose magenta as well.

Again, this is still a work in progress. How hard is it to clear a purge unit?

 

[ghwellsjr]

It is either very easy or very hard depending on where the clog is. If you haven't been able to clear it by cleaning the purge pad (which is easy), then it will be very hard. I am in the process of trying to clear one and my plan is to put the print engine on another printer base that I have cut a hole in the bottom so that I can suck on the purge tubing while the printer is running. I have already tried this with the print engine out of the printer and not running, and it didn't clear.

 

[nanosec]

How do you know the refurb'ed print head has no internal damage? Do you get any kind of warranty on it? Sounds very risky to me.

Here's the kicker, out of the package, it printed like a champ. 1 Day later and I'm having issues...Not sure where this is headed just yet.

 

[nanosec]

Okay I'm stumped.

Here's what I've done:

1. cleaned the purge pads out, they are draining (albeit slowly)
2. purged a new magenta cartridge (just to cover all bases)
3. tried swapping to old print head (behaves exactly the same way)
4. Performed complete cartridge swap out from working printer +1 cleaning cycle for good measure
5. tried different ink
6. sealed up german refill hole (just in case)
7. blew air out through top vents by placing mouth on cart and blowing to remove any air pockets


When I do a head cleaning and then do a nozzle check I get magenta. However if I try printing a full red page, it loses the red after a few lines and goes to yellow.

I'm starting to think this problem is linked to the actual printer and not the print head in any way.

I am very wary of moving print heads into known working systems to test further (did it once, kinda want to avoid it, due to other people's experiences)

Technically, if there was a problem with the purge unit, wouldn't other colors be affected? (this is not the case) It just seems to be this magenta.
I have other printers running this magenta ink just fine, so I am discounting this being an ink issue. (seeing as I need to eliminate this as a step I went ahead and used another ink)

I do notice that nozzle check letters are in blue like the c c c m m m y bk are Blue and not their normal black.

Black is printing fine however.

I am at a real loss here.

IMHO I think the print head is fine (I think I prematurely replaced the original one)

Anyways, my hands are a damn mess from troubleshooting this, at this point I really don't know why this is happening.

Again, it prints fine for about 1 page after a cleaning then it quickly stops printing magenta. I am not sure why this is happening, and keep in mind this print head worked fine for 1 day with no issues. The problem is identical if I go ahead and use the old print head, it behaves in exactly the same way.

Does this sound like it's still related to the purge unit?


** Okay I am throwing my hands up in the air, I guess it *could* be a print head, but why does it print okay and then stop printing red after 1 page?

I don't think I want to try getting yet another print head and testing.

I also need to disqualify my previous post of saying the print head was fine in another 3rd printer, as I didn't give it enough time to test beyond a nozzle check. For all intents and purposes it could fail after trying to print a full red page in a 3rd printer.

 

[nanosec]

I found an excellent source on refurbished print heads and figured that was going to be my route with these.

Do you have a link?

If you do a search on google for Laser Xperts ebay or laser Xperts Ip4500 ebay, should bring you to them. Their webpage does not have the print heads listed, so go on ebay.

They don't ship to Canada, I had to use parcel forwarding. But the print heads are like $33.00

For the record, I do not think the print head they sent me has any problems, I am blaming the printer as all evidence points to that.
I have another refurb print head in a printer and it runs fine.

This is not a recommendation, I would say you *should* be okay getting print heads from them, but I haven't gotten more than 2 from them.

At this point I am questioning the value of buying print heads as opposed to just sucking it up and getting the model of the day.

 

[nanosec]

Okay just an update, got one printer back on line.

Here's what I did:

Went and got a tube and hooked it directly to the print head magenta screen (after removing the rubber gasket in place)

1. flushed it with windex solution and then did regular cleaning

Prints magenta then starves out of magenta.

At this point I am ruling out print head failure as it prints fine in a nozzle check and then just starves out of magenta.

2. So I went and bought some silicone baking sheets and a hole punch from the dollar store and fashioned a gasket to sit over the regular gasket.

3. red is flowing, but massive streaking. I try yet *another* magenta cartridge and then do a cleaning+ then full test page of red.

We have magenta!!! No streaks, no problems. Damn cartridges, either I didn't purge the one I did enough (in my haste to troubleshoot, I omitted the hitting the nozzle on the cart with a steamer)

I can't say at what point the problem was solved, or it was a combination of things, but I must say, I need to start listening to you guys more.
The tube over the screen on the printhead IMHO is the best way to clear a head. It makes using the compressed air seem rudimentary.


I'm am going to apply these steps to another printer and printhead and see what results i get.

 

[ghwellsjr]

I burned out a print head and a printer by using the tube and syringe on the pigment black inlet port and not waiting two days for the print head to thoroughly dry out. I figured that since I didn't get ink anywhere except in the paths it normally flows, I would be safe. I did use a lot of force and so I may have compromised some internal seals and maybe I would have ruined the print head anyway, but now I never return a print head back to the printer once I have used any liquid anywhere except on a soaked paper towel on the bottom to clean off external ink.

How much force did you use to purge your magenta nozzles?

 

[nanosec]

I bought a long tube, and was going to use a syringe to put pressure to it, but it just seemed easier to load the tube with windex and then just blow into it with the same force as blowing up a balloon, maybe just slightly over that force.

I too completely burned a printer+print head last year, and how I did it was not drying the printhead contacts thoroughly on the back. It was a late night and I was rushing and as soon as I put the printhead in, I just knew it was toast on the errors I was getting. A printhead change didn't help either. So now I just keep that printer in case I need to cannibalize.

In my heart of hearts I just know that the real issue was ink was only loading into the printhead at cleaning time. It would print and as as the ink would get depleted, it just wasn't getting ink from the cartridge.

The funny thing is, I did purge a cartridge, just not well enough I guess. So I guess a new rule to add to my arsenal is the following:


1. if ink is present after cleaning+ nozzle check and then stops when trying to print a page of solid color, it means ink is not getting to the nozzles from the cartridge and is not a clog, but a delivery issue of the cartridge itself.

At this point I can't say if the gasket I made (thanks for your earlier posts on that regarding the hole puncher) helped or not.

I have a MP500 and another 4500 I am going to try to resurrect, and I'm first going to rotate through my collection of dead printheads and do the tube cleaning to see if I have any winners.

 

[ghwellsjr]

How hard is it to clear a purge unit?

It is either very easy or very hard depending on where the clog is. If you haven't been able to clear it by cleaning the purge pad (which is easy), then it will be very hard. I am in the process of trying to clear one and my plan is to put the print engine on another printer base that I have cut a hole in the bottom so that I can suck on the purge tubing while the printer is running. I have already tried this with the print engine out of the printer and not running, and it didn't clear.

Well, I have finished unclogging the purge unit. I put three feet of tubing on each of the purge tubes and ran them through the base with the hole cut out. As soon as I powered up the printer, liquid started coming down the tubes. I thought that maybe the purge unit healed itself during the weeks since I had previously tried to unclog it without powering the printer, but that was not the case. This just indicated that the clog was not in the purge pump itself but in the tubing coming from the purge pad down to the pump.

After several deep head cleanings yielded no more liquid coming down the tubes, I inserted a syringe full of Windex on the ends of the tubes on forced Windex into them. When I did more cleanings, I could see the liquid going up and down but not progressing very fast. I removed the purge pad and repeated injecting more Windex with a little more force and actually got the Windex to come out of the purge pad tray. The liquid now coming out of the tubing was tainted with ink. I repeated putting Windex on the purge pad tray and doing head cleanings until it was clear.

Now that I have gone through this process, I'm wondering if I could have cleared the clog earlier without powering up the printer just by forcing the ink up the exit tubes until it comes out the purge pad tray. It sure would be a lot easier than taking the printer all apart, putting it back on the base with the hole, clearing the clog, taking the printer apart, and finally putting it on the original base back. If I ever have the problem again, I'll give it a try or maybe someone else can.

 

[nanosec]

As I was rereading my post and yours, I was laughing at the fact that we've had to become such experts at just keeping damn printers printing.
I went to staples last week and had to have a manager grab me an ip4700 off the top racks. He looks at me and says "You've done your research."

If only he knew the half of it.