Problem printing with Pro-100/PC Inks - Printhead or cartridge issue

[deejay]

Hi,

Hoping someone can point me in the right direction.

I've been using PC inks in my Pro-100 for 18 months. I find the printhead clogs a bit more often than with OEM inks, but nothing I can fix with a water/IPA/Windex flush, until recently.

It seems like I have an issue affecting all colors. I soaked and flushed the printhead and I'm confident there's no ink in there. I've never let the cartridges run dry but noticed that some of the sponges were a little patchy and I had tiny air bubbles in the channel that connects the reservoir to the sponge on the bottom of the cartridge. I cleaned one of the cartridges (magenta) and refilled it. It took the ink up very well, no white spots on the sponge and no bubbles in the channel. However, the nozzle check isn't any better for magenta.

There seems to be a pattern on the color bars, most noticeable on the BLK and GY bars.
Anyone have any ideas as to the cause...printer, printhead, or cartridges? I ordered a new printhead but don't want to install it unless I'm confident it's the fix.

Pics attached are from the most recent nozzle check, i.e. after printhead deep clean and magenta cartridge flush/refill.

thanks.

 

[Artur5]

In cases like yours where there’s no clear indication of what’s wrong, an (expensive) way of finding out is to purchase new gray and magenta OEM carts and check if the weird patterns persist, If everything goes back to normal after a couple of nozzle checks, the printhead is OK and the problem are those refilled carts. For one reason or another they don’t feed ink properly to the printhead.
If you see no improvement after switching to OEM carts then you’ll now it’s nozzle clogs

P.S. I see a sort of pattern in almost all the colors, not only gray and magenta, but it’s probably the texture of the paper and/or scanning artifacts.

 

[deejay]

Hi,

thanks for getting back to me.

The problem *is* affecting all colors. I flushed and refilled a single cartridge so I could test whether the patchy sponges or bubbles in the channel were the cause(s). Plus, it seems unlikely that all the cartridges would go bad simultaneously.

I'm also confident that there aren't any clogs as I was very thorough when cleaning the heads. In my experience head clogs manifest themselves as solid white lines across the colored bars. It's the pattern aspect of it that's giving me pause for thought. It seems to me that the issue is the printhead is bad, or some problem in the communication between the printer and the printhead.

A few nozzle checks ago I used glossy paper so I could make sure I wasn't seeing issues introduced by the paper. I got the same results, only glossier

I was hoping someone had seen a similar pattern on the nozzle checks and had fixed it.

Thanks for weighing in, I appreciate it.

 

[The Hat]

The problem *is* affecting all colors. I flushed and refilled a single cartridge so I could test whether the patchy sponges or bubbles in the channel were the cause(s). Plus, it seems unlikely that all the cartridges would go bad simultaneously.

@Arthur5 is most likely correct, the problems your expierencing are been caused by your carts, first off, question:- when to do change your carts, is it at low ink or near empty, because that makes a huge difference.

You’ll need to flush all your carts before refilling and while you’re waiting on them to dry, you could buy all new replacement carts, aftermarket or OEM that’s up to you which ones you get, with the new carts installed the lines in your nozzle prints should disappear..

 

[deejay]

Thanks for the info.

The cartridge I already flushed, dried, and refilled still doesn't print properly. Up until the issue with the nozzle checks I was printing every 2-3 days with no problems. Is it likely that all the cartridges went bad at the same time? Honestly, I'm having trouble believing that one day they were all good and 3 days later all bad so that's what made me think it was a printhead/printer issue.

In answer to your question...I usually refill when it looks like I have a cartridge that's about 2/3 emptied (so 1/3 ink remaining). When I fill one, I top them all off to avoid multiple purge cycles. I have cartridges (mainly BLK, GY, and LGY) that never get less than about 70%. That said, in the past 18 months I can't say with absolute certainty that I've never had a low ink warning, but I'm certain I don't remember seeing one.

I have another set of reconditioned cartridges I can fill and test out, but I feel I've already tested out that theory with the magenta cartridge.

thanks

 

[The Hat]

You have two choices then, the print head may be in trouble but I don’t know that for certain, so you could try buying a set of OEM new carts and see if they will clean up all of the current issues you’re having with your nozzle check.

I know the cost of OEM carts are expensive but you can always keep the carts back for later high quality prints if need be, the other alternative is to buy a new print head and start again with your purged refilled carts, when you have issues like these there sometime is not a straight answer..

P.S. if you ran only OEM inks you wouldn’t have these sort of problems..

 

[deejay]

The printhead arrived, I'm going with that option. Going for the OEM cartridges option would require that I'd have to believe that all 8 of the ones I'm using right now went bad at exactly the same time and that doesn't seem plausible to me.

Thanks anyway.

P.S. lol, cos no-one ever ran into problems using OEM ink, right?

 

[stratman]

OEM Canon ink is the least problematic and most maintenance free ink for your printer, not to mention the best archival ink for your printer by a stupidly wide margin. It is also significantly more expense.

Quality aftermarket inks do cost less and can have great color fidelity but are crap for archival purposes and refillers will need to mind their p's and q's with cartridge and print head surveillance and need for maintenance.

It would be a false equivalence to suggest otherwise.

Both types have their place in printing.

Hope the new print head resolves your issues. I would strongly consider this a time to flush and refill all the cartridges before installing the new print head. Might as well start as fresh as possible to hopefully remove potential cartridge issues now and to keep them running well as long as possible.

 

[deejay]

I agree 100% with everything you said. I don't know if anyone was claiming that aftermarket was as good as OEM, I certainly wasn't.

If Canon sold OEM ink in bulk and made the cartridges refillable they could take my money all day long (even at Canon-ink prices). The youtube videos by @jtoolman were what pushed me to PC inks. Not having to worry that the ink purge that takes place when you swap a cartridge will trigger a low ink warning on another cartridge is worth the hassle that comes with aftermarket, for me.

I'll take your advice on board and use a fresh set of reconditioned cartridges with the new printhead, thanks.

all the best.

 

[The Hat]

I still think you can reconcile your differences with your print head so don’t discard it just yet, because 99% of poor print performance is always down to the ink cartridges, so by replacing the cartridges you will also remove any issues you’ve had with print quality. Use new carts and not refilled ones..

P.S. Unfortunately most issues are cause by not maintaining the cartridges to a high standard, because it’s so easy to refill that can then lead to slippage in your refilling procedures over time..