Printer Repair Manuals

[Trigger 37]

For all of those people that have requested my Repair Manuals, I have just relisted them again on eBay. This listing will only be up for 5 more days. It covers Canon printers from the i550 and i560 all the way up to the Canon iP6000. The few that are missing are being worked on and will be added to the list as soon as possible. It also covers a small selection of Hewlett Packard Deskjet printers, basically the HP Deskjet 832C, 840C, 895Cse, 960C, & 990Cse. The Epson printers will follow on after that. After all, I still have to play a lot of golf with my friends and that takes a lot of time.

Each of these manuals contains detailed digital photos that help to visualize each step in the disassembly and repair of all major compoents of these printers. They also contain instructions and photos on how to clean Printheads, refill ink carts, and maintain your printer in excellent working condition on a day to day basis. The CD also provides all available documentation provided by Canon or HP, including Service Manuals, Parts Catalogs, Product Service Bulletins, Device drivers, and application software. One last feature is a folder that contains over 30 Color Test images that aid in the Calibration of printers to achieve improved color balance for non OEM inks.

I have found that with excellent bulk ink, such as that provided by Image Specialist at PrecisionColors.com, I have been able to print exceptional high quality digital photos on the Kirkland Professional Glossy Photo paper using the standard Canon ICM profiles provided with the drivers. For those willing to strive for absolute excellance, the Canon driver provides the opportunity to individually adjust each and every aspect of color management and create color profiles to match what every ink or paper you are using. Of course none of this can work until you get your printer in top working condition.

 

[mikling]

spelling error in above

precisioncolors.com

 

[Trigger 37]

Mike,...sorry for miss-spelling. I wish they had a built in spelling checker for all post. Of course, I don't think it would have caught that name.

 

[duanebluhm]

I'm interested in a manual for the Epson r380. I have an almost new unit with one cartridge (yellow) not printing- I've tried a new cartridge, no help. Epson says that since it was 5 weeks out of the 1-year warranty I'm on my own.

Duane bluhm email: duanebluhm@gmail.com

 

[brendo]

I have the official canon ip4200 Service manual if anyone wants it.

 

[Trigger 37]

duanebluhm,... There are very few Epson Service Manuals available anywhere. However, your ink problem could just be one needing cleaning. There are many excellent suggestions on this web site for Cleaning Espon Printhead. Search for them. Also, go to the "Fixyourownprinter" forum and do the search there. This forum seems to be 90% Canon, and that forum is 70% Epson and/or HP and 30% Canon.

I have cleaned several different models of Epson printers, and I find there are only several things that work;

1. Clean the bottom of the entire printhead. This is done by folding up 1/2 a paper towel so it is no wider than about 1/2". Move the Printhead to the ink change position and pull the power cord. This will allow you to move the printhead by hand. With the head at the far end, lay the strip of paper towel in the space below the printhead, and for the length of the carriage. Fill a Syringe with Windex or hot water and wet the first 2" of the towel. Move the head over that part of the towel making sure you don't drag the towel with the head. It will touch the towel but you don't want to move it. The water will start to dissolve the dried up ink on the bottom of the printhead. Let it set for about 1 minute then wet the next 2" and move the head over that. Keep repeating this for the entire length of towel. When you reach the end the towel will be black with ink. Move the head to the far left and remove the towel to the trash. Use the other 1/2 of the paper towel and repeat all of this.
2. Run several cleaning cycles and then do a nozzle check print. If you begin to see improvement in the print, do some more cleaning cycles. If necessary, go back to step one and repeat that.
3. If the above don't improve you can try and make a cleaning ink cart with one of your old Yellow ink carts. Instead of adding yellow ink to the cart, add hot water or hot Windex. Run a couple of cleaning cycle, and print the nozzle check. Get yourself a set of color test bars that have the Black, Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow colors. Use your favorite photo editor and crop out only an image of the yellow bar. Then open this in Windows picture manager and print a 4x6 image of that yellow bar. This is what we call a "Purge" test pattern. Make one for each color as you may need them some day. The goal is to print some larger pictures of the yellow so the hot water or Windex will flush out the printhead of clogged ink.
4. You can also make or buy a Syring head cleaner. This is just a Syring that has a soft clear plastic tube attached instead of a needle. The small tube has to be the RIGHT size to attach tightly to the input port of the printhead. Add 3 ml of hot windex to the syringe and very slowly with moderate pressure inject the hot windex into the yellow tube where the yellow ink cart normally sets. I would suggest that you have a dry folded paper towel under the head before you start this. Let the hot Windex soak in the printhead for 5 minutes. Once all of the liquid is injected, use the same connection to suck the Windex back out of the head by pulling on the Syringe plunger. Don't put this contaminated, dirty, windex back in the head, just dump it into the sink. It will have dislogged many particles of dried up ink and you really don't want to push that back down into the printhead. Try a couple of cleaning cycles and print some nozzle check to see what progress you have made. Remember, each time you put back a new or different ink cart, you have to run several cleaning cycles to "Prime" the head with good clean ink.

I have never had an Epson printer that wound not come clean after one or all of these tips. There is always the possibility that you have a damaged head or a bad elecrical connection, but at least these tips will help you if it is only a clogged printhead. Once last point. Make sure you have good ink carts filled with ink.

 

[duanebluhm]

Many thanks- I'll try the procedure you outline.

I know Fixyourownprinter.com- I got data from them to repair my Apple Laser printer, still working fine.

Thanks again,

Duane Bluhm

 

[Trigger 37]

For those of you reading this post, I have decided not to list my Repair Manuals on eBay for awhile. I have found that the listing cataglories on eBay are so large and inclusive, my listing can get lost among 1000's of printer listing, and the people that are really looking for it can not find it. However, I can still make them available if you contact me by email.

I want to point out that I have been very successful helping people out from many locations in the US, Canada, Europe, and as far away as Austrailia. Other people ask me, "Why do you think you can help me with my Printer"?. My answer is, "I have 22 Canon printers, 19 Hewlet Packard printers, and about 12 Epson printers. Some are standard printers, some are ALL-In_ONE units. I take them apart and fix them one by one, and I write a manual for each new model I work on. This affords me a great "Learning Experience".

What I have learned is that it is very clear why so many "Printer Repair Centers" are closing their doors. These printers are very complex and difficult to take apart and repair. It takes a lot of time. People don't want to pay a Repair shop what it would really cost to repair one of these printers. Canon, HP, and Epson are "Giving Away" new printers so they can sell more expensive ink. So it become unaffordable to fix an old printer when you can buy a new one for less money. The problem here is that all of the manufactuers keep putting chips on their new ink carts to stop people from using anything but their expensive ink. The older printer are worth more now because they can use ink carts that don't have chips, or the chips are easily reset.

I've lost track of the number of printers I have fixed and sold and I'm still amazed that I haven't found one yet that I could not fix. The biggest problem is just getting the parts.

 

[websnail]

Trigger... I'm interested from a semi-commercial point of view in any input you have re: Epson and Canon printers when it comes to redirecting their waste ink.

I've managed to lose which of the plethora of emails in my inbox is yours though so if you could drop me a line that'd be appreciated.

Coming back on topic though... The point about old printers being worth more is VERY true... I'm starting to count my lucky stars I haven't binned a bunch of iP4200's of late especially with the 4600 seeming to step back towards it.. Antique Canon of 2006 vintage anyone? (j/k )

 

[Trigger 37]

Websnail,...Yes,.. I got lucky and got my hands on 15 iP4200 printers, all with good ink. From time to time I sell one, but because of this total economic colapse, I may just hange on to them awhile. They are terrific printers and the print quality and resolution is the same as my iP6600d,... and they are faster.

I'll send you the email again.

On a very different subject, many of the inkjet masters, including yourself, were all searching for the solution to many of the mysterious printhead failures. It continues to be very difficult to diagnose printhead problems since there was no detailed documentation explaining all the timing and controls of printheads. I remember complaining that "Canon knew all the answers and could easily tell us all of this ". I kept hoping for some engineer in Japan to get mad at Canon one day and post on the web, all the secrets of Canon BJ Printers and printhead. Well that never happened, but however I have found a few Canon Documents that do provide all the information I think we need. Canon actually published the information years ago, but then they removed it immediately and have never printed anything else about it since that time.

What I was hoping to do, (When I get more time to work on this), is to start a new thread, or to re-initialize the thread I started once before on the subject of "How to verify GOOD or BAD printhead". I'm worndering if you think many of the Masters would be will to work on this again. I don't have the answers because this information is so complex, and my brain is getting all clogged up because of the economy and it is an election year. I know I could use a lot of help figuring this all out. My problem is that I'm getting a little older now and I find that when I go from one room to another to get something, by the time I get there I have forgotten what I went in there for.

Now that the economy is in the tank, I think I will have more time to work on this,... since I don't have any money left. However, I have noticed that the activity of problems and posts for this web site have really gone down. It seems the questions over at "Fixyourownprinter" are still running very high??????

Let me know what you think.