Problematic Canon Pixma IP5000 free to good home

[zack23]

Keep in mind that it will take a long time for enough water to evaporate out of a cartridge before it becomes a problem. You indicated in your first post that the printer had "a few months of light usage" before the problem happened again after you replaced the printhead. (You didn't indicate, but you may have been using the same cartridges that you were using with your older printhead. Also, not all of your cartridges were of the problem type.) If you had been using your printer often, it probably would have kept the problem from happening.

Hmm. By light usage I meant I would generally print a page or two of text every other day or so. Every time I turned the printer on, there would have been a light cleaning cycle for all of the inks, but it's true that the color ink carts were rarely printed with and therefore would have stayed in the printer for quite a long time. And yes, I was refilling and using the same carts after I put in a new printhead, though I believe only one of the carts would have had a funky air vent (I was cycling through an OEM Canon Cart, a Hobbicolors cart, and a Formulabs cart -- the last having the apparently inadequate air vent design).

The nozzle check pattern that I uploaded was the first time the dark magenta showed anywhere near a solid pattern and the first time any ink showed in the light magenta (at the very bottom). I then removed the printhead and tried to shake some ink out of it but instead I think I shook some ink into the electronics because the printer would no longer recognize the printhead. I agree that there was probably also an electronic problem with the dark magenta, but I think it was caused by the ink contamination during shipping.

Understood, but the magenta patterns in the test you uploaded look just like the magenta test patterns I was getting before shipping the printer to you (and I was getting similar magenta patterns with the two previous printheads when they went south) - in other words, the ultra-light printing of the 'light' magenta band, and the 'checkerboard' alternating densities of the dark magenta band are almost certainly unrelated to any damage caused to the printhead by the leaked ink getting on to the electrical contacts.

Zack

 

[ghwellsjr]

Thanks for the info, Zack.

Now unless I can rejuvenate the printhead (which I probably can't--I never heard of anyone doing that), my question is: should I buy another printhead?

You stated that you have gone through two replacement printheads, one under warranty and one that you purchased. I presume you had to return your original printhead to Canon and you gave your second printhead to Grandad35 and you sent your third one to me in the printer, is that correct?

Have all three printheads ended up with the same nozzle check pattern that I posted (except for cyan)? If the answer is yes then I'm really going to be putting my theory to the test if I buy another printhead.

Did you ever do any extended nozzle checks on this printer when it was having problems?

 

[zack23]

You stated that you have gone through two replacement printheads, one under warranty and one that you purchased. I presume you had to return your original printhead to Canon and you gave your second printhead to Grandad35 and you sent your third one to me in the printer, is that correct?

Correct.

Have all three printheads ended up with the same nozzle check pattern that I posted (except for cyan)?

Correct.

Did you ever do any extended nozzle checks on this printer when it was having problems?

Yup, and I even saved some. These are from the #2 printhead, I think, after it had developed problems. Below are the regular nozzle test and the extended nozzle test. Ignore the funky color rendition and ignore the apparent density variations in the cyan bands (the paper wasn't flat on my cheap unadjusted scanner). Also, ignore the black letters and numbers on the back of the test sheet which 'printed through' the paper:

I'm not sure if it is clear on the uploaded image, but on the extended nozzle check the lighter magenta crosshatch pattern is much lighter than it should be. The density of the darker magenta crosshatch pattern looks basically OK, but the lines are not completely straight - both horizontals and verticals are quite wavy. Oddly enough, the lines on the light magenta crosshatch pattern seem to be straight, though the pattern is so faint it's a bit hard to tell. All of the other colors look fine.

One other bit of info - after the printheads go south, the alignment test patterns were also screwed up. I'm not sure how to describe it and unfortunately I didn't save a copy, but the magenta patches had these odd geometric 'notches' in them, and in some lines of patches it was impossible to determine which patch had the 'smoothest' appearance: all the patches in that vertical line had white stripes in them. Sorry I can't be clearer about this.

Anyway, hope this is helpful. The one other thing you might do is contact Grandad35 and see if he ever ripped apart printhead #2. Remember, he stated in his initial report on the printhead was that when he did his initial disassembly, he didn't find any evidence of clogging (I had worked hard to clean out this print head myself - soaking in warm water, compressed air, cleaning cycle with windex in a cart, none of which had had any effect on the problems I was having with it).

Hope this is helful,

Zack

 

[ghwellsjr]

Thanks, Zack.

Just a helpful hint--when you are trying to scan something like this where there is something printed on the opposite side of the paper, you can improve the scan by putting a piece of black paper on top of the scanned paper so that the black lettering will blend in with the black paper. Maybe you could try that and upload it again.

Also, it would be helpful for you to tell us how the different colored grid patterns are arranged. It is very difficult to know where to look.

I am still soaking the printhead in Windex. It still is producing ink out when I blot the printhead.

I've contacted Grandad35 about the other printhead.

 

[ghwellsjr]

Grandad35 used your printhead for destructive analysis. See the story starting at this link:

http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=13158#p13158

 

[zack23]

Just a helpful hint--when you are trying to scan something like this where there is something printed on the opposite side of the paper, you can improve the scan by putting a piece of black paper on top of the scanned paper so that the black lettering will blend in with the black paper. Maybe you could try that and upload it again.

Yup, I know that trick - just couldn't find a piece of black paper last night Here's another shot, backed up with black paper and cropped to show more detail of the crosshatches. Still not great, but you can see a bit more:

Also, it would be helpful for you to tell us how the different colored grid patterns are arranged. It is very difficult to know where to look.

Sorry, forgot that different Canon printers print different test pattern layouts. As you can see, the (pigment?) black, dark cyan, dark magenta, and yellow test hatches are across the top. The second line shows the light cyan hatch (beneath the dark cyan), the light magenta hatch (beneath the dark magenta), and the (dye?) black hatch (beneath the yellow). With this scan, you should be able to clearly see the wavy lines on the dark magenta hatch. The light cyan hatch matches a test print done with a good printhead, but the light magenta hatch is significantly lighter than it should be.

Grandad35 used your printhead for destructive analysis. See the story starting at this link:
http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewto 158#p13158

I remember that discussion. However, in it Grandad reports on his initial examination and disassembly of the printhead, in which he is unable to find anything wrong. After a bit of back and forth with some other posters, he concludes by saying he will commence destructive analysis 'next week,' but then as far as I could see there is no further follow-up.

 

[Grandad35]

Grandad35 used your printhead for destructive analysis. See the story starting at this link:
http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewto 158#p13158

I remember that discussion. However, in it Grandad reports on his initial examination and disassembly of the printhead, in which he is unable to find anything wrong. After a bit of back and forth with some other posters, he concludes by saying he will commence destructive analysis 'next week,' but then as far as I could see there is no further follow-up.

The head was subsequently destroyed without learning anything useful.

 

[ghwellsjr]

After many days of soaking the printhead in Windex, washing it with water and blotting the nozzles, it finally quit producing ink. I let it dry near a heater outlet for many days and put it back in the printer but I get the same flashing light pattern and no activity in the printer so I'm concluding that the printhead is forever dead. Now I have to decide about buying a new printhead.

 

[ghwellsjr]

I noticed what looked like a scratch on the bottom of the printhead but on closer examination, I think this is really a burned out trace. You can't tell from this picture but the path of the burn follows the traces that I can see with a magnifiying glass.

Unfortunately, I didn't notice when this burn appeared so I don't know if it was the cause of the cyan nozzles not working or the cause of the head not being recognized by the printer.