Printer Repair Manuals

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Well time it the critical factor and in my case, expertise... Everything I've learned about printers has been akin to a cave man learning about the world... I learn by doing, not from any degree... The fact that my father and grandfather were engineers helps but I'm definitely not versed in fluid dynamics beyond what I learned in school.

I'm returning to the Canon field though having opted to plump for some of Sam Cahir's kits to provide a stable platform for my critical needs. From there in intend to learn from careful and methodical observation rather than the hurried "must make this work!" approach which caused as many problems as it solved before now.

Got your emails and will respond later when I get back from a few jobs needing sorting.

 

[Grandad35]

Trigger 37,

I, for one, would be interested in pursuing the mysterious print head failure modes. That would be an interesting technical challenge.

Since June, I have refilled 71 carts and printed the equivalent of 900 8x10 photos, so for a non-commercial user my printing load is far from zero. IMHO, the reason that the number of technical posts has decreased is that many of us original forum members have our printing/refilling/CIS/whatever procedures down to the point where it has become routine. Like many others, I use a pre-chipped printer and have nothing to contribute on chip resetters. Like you, I am sticking with the refill through a hole in the ink tank, as it isnt a problem for me. I have my procedures down to a science, refilling 25-30 carts at a time. It is interesting to read about other techniques, but Im not going to change something that works so well for me.

 

[Trigger 37]

Grandad,...Great to hear from you. It has been awhile for both of us. One of the major printhead problems that got me searching for more answers was the famous "Hens Teeth" pattern in the nozzle check. I have seen this posted by many people and I've had the problem and still have that problem on one of my i850 printers. The mystery is that nothing I can do will fix the i850, so I've concluded it is a bad printhead. On the other hand, just a couple of weeks ago I had a Canon S600 which gave me a very similary problem. Only 1/2 of the cyan, or every other "BAND" was printing. It turned out after several successful cleanings, I first got the top half of the missing band to print, and finally I got the entire head to print a good nozzle check. So you can see, it is impossible to tell from first look what the problem is.

However, the Canon information that I have found explains what signal electrically control the printing of each section of a nozzle pattern, if I understand them correctly. That is why I am looking for help. I need more brain power to help analyse the patterns that print and those that don't. I also have the data stream for the serial encoded information for both the lower density printers and the higher density printers. One of the problem is that Canon Engineers mess with the Nozzle pattern for each and every machine, including the Service Test Pattern. What they choose to print out does not always follow what they could or should print out for a Nozzle check. If I could match every pattern failure to an individual control wire then we would have a way to issolate any failing Nozzle pattern or Service test pattern.

You have a lot of printers, but I'm not sure they are a wide selection or just many of the same model. My problem is that I have had many different models but very few of them had failures. Some that did fail, I worked with them in my earlier days and fixed them before I became aware of how important it is to keep detail records of each and every time that I did. I have about 6-7 bad printhead for the i560 model and I still have many printers that use that head, like 5 MP730's, 1-i560, 1-i850. These I can use for testing and analysis.

I will gather up the data I have and send it too you in a private email. You will be suprised that Canon actually printed it, but of course they stopped doing it after one time. There is still a lot of questions this data does not answer, since all it contains is detailed timing, code assignments, logical pin functions, and control information. It could still use about 10,000 words to explain the interaction between timing and controls, and to explain "Why" they print what they do.

Who would you recommend as additional Master that may be interested in this information. The key point I have found is that Canon has not changed the way they control any printer, with exception to resolution and dot size, since the very early models. I'm sure they stopped printing this information when their marketing team chewed out the Engineers for giving away the "Design Details of their printer technology". Once it was out, any other company could take advantage of Canon's vast research and development and just copy their designs. The sad news for Canon was that it was too late, the data had already been released and published. However, they have done an excellent job in keeping the lid on it. As witness to this fact, look how many of us have struggled over the last several years trying to get even one or two clues on how it all works.

 

[Grandad35]

Trigger 37,

I look forward to receiving the Canon information.

I don't know if Canonfodder still visits the forum, but he certainly has detailed electrical knowledge in these types of devices. You might want to PM him.

Given what we know about the construction of Canon's printheads, it is very difficult to understand how a picket fence pattern on a nozzle check could be caused by a clog. An electrical problem would seem to be far more likely, as there is a definite electrical break at the mid-point of each bank of nozzles. I remember one post where it was claimed that someone fixed this problem by resetting the printer's EEPROM. It is possible that the printer shuts down a bank of nozzles when some error condition is sensed (e.g. an overheated print head or excessive current draw), and that the error condition subsequently clears and the bank is reactivated.

It will be interesting to see if this mystery can be solved.

 

[Trigger 37]

Grandad,... thanks for the info about Canonfodder,... I remember many of the great posts that he made. Where is he these days. Anyway, your comment about the picket fence being a clog is Right On. I felt the same way at the instant I saw it. By as usual I did not give up and proceed to do a couple of cleanings and low and behold, it got better each time. ONce you see the timing data that I have you will see why it is easy to diagnose a bad nozzle print. The electrical signals do not align themselves from upper to lower. They are only assocated with a band. So there has to be some ink tunnel in the printhead that feeds the lower section of the bank. The printing is only controlled by ODD or EVEN bank, not from top or bottom. The serial data stream provides the bitstream for all nozzles from 1-to-8 from top to bottom. The banks are ODD to Even left to right. I won't get into it much more hear but the Key is the combination of the data in the Serial bit stream and the internal diode matrix that decodes the bit stream down to specific printhead segments. What this means is that if the printer is getting the data for the upper bit of the data stream the only way the upper nozzles can fail is if the diode decoder fails at only the uppper bit. Bits 0,1,2,3 control the firest 16 nozzles. bit 4 is the odd or even bit that controls the odd or even "Band"

Because of the current economic crash, I have come up with my own solution on how to resolve the econimic situation. I start to drink a lot earlier in the day.

Good night from Lake Wobegone, where all the women are strong,.......etc.

 

[Grandad35]

Trigger,

I understand your statement that the signals to the print head do not differentiate between the top and bottom halves of the nozzle bank, but there is also a physical break in the circuitry at exactly the midpoint, as seen in the photos in this post.

I look forward to seeing the schematics.

 

[InkWiz]

I was able to Locate these two ip4500 service manuals. Email me if you need a free copy.

(1)
file: ip4500-ssm.pdf; size: 1.6MB:
title: iP4500 SIMPLIFIED SERVICE MANUAL, QY8-13BI-000, Rev.00, July 12, 2007, Canon Inc. 54 pgs.


(2)
ip4500-tr.pdf; size: 0.5 MB:
iP4500 Technical Reference, QY8-2304-000, Rev.00, July 2007, Canon Inc. 16 pgs.


Also, I'm looking for any other technical manuals for the iP4500. There may be another more complete service manual, since I only found the "simplified service manual."

Does anyone know if another repair manual exists for iP4500 ? Anyone has a free copy handy to share?

 

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if you can send something to the admin prefix on octoink.co.uk that'd be appreciated... I'll let you have anything I get that suits your needs in return if I get it.

The iP4200 manual is probably fairly similar though as they've built their printer much the same throughout..