Problem with Photo Cyan ink cartridge pulling through - Canon Pixma Pro 10s

[stratman]

when flooding the purge unit last time, it basically flooded the printer and surely that cant be good.

No, that does not sound good. See the second bulleted point below.

When testing the purge system you begin with opening the top of the printer as if you are going to replace an ink cartridge. The print head then moves away from the parking station where it sits above the purge pads and eventually stops in the center of the printer. Then you drip or squirt a solution (water, Windex, alcohol) on top of the purge pads until the fluid pools. Then you close the printer top, the print head returns to park over the purge pads and a brief purge system response should suck the pooled fluid away to the ink diaper pads that soak up waste ink so it doesn't drip outside the printer. Then open the lid to expose the purge pads. There should be no more pooled fluid and the purge pads may look whiter depending on what fluid you used to test. These are the events you should expect.

If the purge system is malfunctioning then you would NOT want to open up and install that new print head you have. You need to resolve a purge system malfunction first or get a new printer.

What to look for:

• If fluid is still pooled because there was no brief purge event after you closed the lid then you can run a single simple regular cleaning from the maintenance menu. If fluid is still pooled then you have a purge system malfunction.
  • This can be caused by clogged purge pads - These can be taken out without any dissembly of the printer and flushed with water in the sink. Very messy.
  • It could be clogged tubing of the purge system. The tubes can be removed and flushed if you want to dissemble the printer. Take pictures of everything you do so you have a guide for how to reassemble, even the removal of a bolt, screw or tab. This is critical so you do not end up with a "spare widget" when your done and the printer doesn't work.
  • A malfunction of the peristaltic motor or parts.
• If the fluid never pools then the likely issue is one or more of the purge tubes has become disconnected somewhere and the fluid drains somewhere inside the printer where the disconnect occurs. This requires dissembly of the printer to reattach. Again, take pictures of each step taken along the way no matter how trivial it may seem.
• If you do dissemble the printer then you might as well clean up any ink splash or spillage inside. If there is a service tool for your printer then you might consider obtaining it to reset your waste ink counter AND then clean the waste ink pads/diaper. Ask @The Hat or @PeterBJ if a service tool is available for your printer and whether this would be a useful exercise.

 

[The Hat]

OK I can imagine how frustrated you are by now with all us here and you still haven’t got a fix sorted out with the clock ticking down..

In #post32 you have four Attachments, and the first shows no P Cyan, poor Yellow, patchy Red, Grey fading, and Matte Black in shadows..

Your Magenta and P Magenta are perfect and so is the P Black and Cyan…Great..

Your second Attachment, shows the P Cyan making an appearance, and the Yellow improves quite a bit, the grey is much poorer that the first showing, and so is the Matte Black,

The Magenta, P Magenta , Red, P Black and cyan are still very strong and perfect.

The third Attachment, has a marked improvement in all the colours, but the Grey, Matte Black and Yellow still needing more improvement, and the P Cyan looking like it’s going to make a full recovery.

The last Attachment shows, that the P Cyan and Yellow are starting to fade away again but the rest of the colours are hold strongly..

Then onto post #38 that attachment shows the Matte Black disappearing and the Yellow non excitant, you have changed all the effected colour cart to new ones but your nozzle prints are still all over the place.

If the print head was blocked up (Clogged) you would get the same print outs each time, and if you cartridges were at fault your print outs would vary yes but not to the extent yours are, so there is only one thing left to check and fix, The purge unit maybe damaged or the seals may be malfunctioning..

 

[stratman]

The purge unit maybe damaged or the seals may be malfunctioning..

You forgot "see post #51".

Tap, tap, tap. Is this microphone on?

Thank you, I'll be here all week. The brisket is delicious. Remember to tip your waiter.

 

[The Hat]

You forgot "see post #51".

Ha Feckin Ha….

 

[Artur5]

@The Hat, you seem to have a strange fixation with purges .. no offence meant..

During the last 15 -20 years I experienced a good number of Canon printhead failures, either recoverable clogs or unrecoverable electrical damage. Maybe 15-20 dead printheads from 10-12 printers. None of these machines had never the slightest trouble with the purge unit.

The weird patterns in the nozzle checks of @Rachelambie’s Pro10 may be a purge unit problem no doubt, but if we believe a bit in statistics, IMHO the problem resides far more likely in the ink and/or the printhead.

BTW. I never flooded the purge pads with cleaning fluid or something. Sometimes I use folded paper towel to absorb the excess of ink in the pads, that’s all.

 

[stratman]

None of these machines had never the slightest trouble with the purge unit.

You may not have but we've encountered it on the forum a few times. Checking the purge system is a valid diagnostic tool, something the OP should confirm the results before moving on to the next step in the diagnostic/decision making algorithm.

BTW. I never flooded the purge pads with cleaning fluid or something. Sometimes I use folded paper towel to absorb the excess of ink in the pads

The purpose of flooding the purge pads is to test the integrity of the purge system. An argument can be made over using a folded paper towel versus flushing the pads back to like-new in certain circumstances, I suppose, though not if the purge pads are part or all the problem. Flushing, then, is the best choice.

 

[Artur5]

Of course there have been reports of trouble with purge units, but far, far less than the usual issues related with cartridges/ink/printheads
I don't know about recent multi-purpose Canon printers but the models I owned were very reliable in that matter and all the other mechanical aspects too. If only their printheads were more resilient ..

 

[The Hat]

@The Hat, you seem to have a strange fixation with purges .. no offence meant..

None taken..
I was thinking back, and I can’t recall ever losing a print head to an ink clog, I've had several heads that just failed, and I burned out another, but I only lost one printer to a purge unit failure, back then I printed like someone processed, more than 10K a week.

The problems that @rachelambie are having , I too experienced simalar issues, I got a new print head and all new cartridges and could never get a good constant nozzle check because the purge unit was not properly functioning at the time. And (I didn't know that)
I became a member here just to find that out, and it ended with me losing a €1000 printer, and another €400 on a new print head and a complete set of new cartridges that never printed a single sheet.
This place has saved me a fortune since..

 

[palombian]

You may not have but we've encountered it on the forum a few times. Checking the purge system is a valid diagnostic tool, something the OP should confirm the results before moving on to the next step in the diagnostic/decision making algorithm.


The purpose of flooding the purge pads is to test the integrity of the purge system. An argument can be made over using a folded paper towel versus flushing the pads back to like-new in certain circumstances, I suppose, though not if the purge pads are part or all the problem. Flushing, then, is the best choice.

Look, I repeated on my PRO-10 what @rachelambie reported (with a few ml and not taking the flooding literally ).
The cups did not drain from their own, only when the purge pump was activated on power off.
I suppose this is the normal behaviour since my printer has no purge problem.

You've all seen @rachelambie 's photo, the pads have nice slightly washed out colour stripes.
This is not how a blocked purge system looks like.

 

[stratman]

The cups did not drain from their own, only when the purge pump was activated on power off.
I suppose this is the normal behavior since my printer has no purge problem.

Yes, it is normal, As I stated in my first bulleted point in Post #51, you might have to trigger a purge event, such as what you did. That would still constitute a "normal" occurrence as long as the pooled fluid then disappears.

There have been discussions on the forum for why some get a purge after only closing the lid while others have to trigger the purge event manually (as you did) such as

• Did you change out a cartridge for a different one?
• Did you remove, reset and refill the same cartridge ("reset" being the key action)?
• Did you take a cartridge out beyond X seconds and then return the same cartridge to the print head without any other maneuvers?
• Did you unplug the printer from the Mains after the print head came to rest in the center?