Speed Kills (print heads)?

[turbguy]

With one of the "metrics" for printers being speed of printing, I wonder if any additional print head "life" is being expended in the race to produce a "faster printer". I believe there is!

I recently switched my i960 to "quite mode" to slow it up a little. I'd rather have a slower printer with long print head life than fast prints and a piece of junk in 2-3 years.

Comments?? Suggestions??

Wayne

 

[PeterBJ]

I don't know if this will prolong the life of the printhead, but as heat is one of enemies of electronics, your idea seems very plausible to me.

I don't have the service manual for your printer, but in the service manual for Pixma 4000 a list of warnings is found. One warning is "Printhead temperature rise" with the remark: "If the print head temperature is high when the access cover is opened, the warning is displayed*1." "*1: If the warning is displayed, the carriage does not move to the ink tank replacement position when the access cover is opened". Another is: "Protection of excess rise of the print head temperature" with the remark: "If the print head temperature exceeds the specified limit, a Wait is inserted during printing."

I have observed this pausing when printing a 100 page manual from a .pdf file with many pictures, using a Pixma 4000.

I think these old printers with unchipped and easily refillable carts deserves some "Tender Loving Care". Maybe I should apply your idea to my Pixma 5200 which I like very much?

 

[The Hat]

With one of the "metrics" for printers being speed of printing, I wonder if any additional print head "life" is being expended in the race to produce a "faster printer". I believe there is!

I recently switched my i960 to "quite mode" to slow it up a little. I'd rather have a slower printer with long print head life than fast prints and a piece of junk in 2-3 years.

Comments?? Suggestions??

Wayne

I dont believe that speed has anything to with the life of a print head.
Ive printed thousands of sheets on these printers on standard mode as PeterBJ rightly pointed out that the printers
will sometimes rest to cool off before finishing its print runs.

My iP4300 ran mostly in draft mode only and the print head was not affected by the speed when printing five to ten thousand at a time.
The back paper feed however did wear out dough..

 

[qwertydude]

That was definitely an issue like 20 years ago with dot matrix printers. The only reason fast printing would have issues nowadays is if you get ink starvation. Sometimes with certain refills you get slow ink flow and on thermal printers this can cause ink starvation and eventual burnout or severe kogation which will render the printhead useless.

 

[turbguy]

Well, SOMETHING kills them....I've had at least three fail in some manner over the years. Not just "wear" when the ink droplets are deposited in the wrong spots, but selected colors that suddenly stop printing, and outright sudden "print head temperature anomaly" errors. Being that the head is, more or less, a large integrated circuit, I can only suspect that heat kills SOMETHING in the assembly.

Anyone have better explanation?

 

[The Hat]

I have only had only one print head failure and that was in my I865, it was simple old age and presumably to much work.
I just got an on screen message with "replace print head" it worked fine one minute before that.
That was three months after I had replaced the waste ink pads..

 

[gigigogu]

Well, speed killed my late IP5000 http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=6954

I think there is some truth in turbguy initial post, as spreading an action over a longer duration would generate less wear.
However I assume most of newer printers "speed" comes from more nozzles in printhead and not by a faster movement of printhead and nozzles fired at a higher frequency.

 

[Fenrir Enterprises]

I tend to agree that they use a bigger printhead surface area (more nozzles) but I know speed can hurt the printer, at work we went through two HP Business Inkjet 1100DTN printers due to the belts and gears wearing out (we printed a lot daily but we were hardly anywhere near the monthly print rating for it). When that thing was in "standard" mode it flung the printhead around hard enough to shake the table it was on! The current generation of printers that succeeded it (Officejet 8000-series and anything that takes the 940XL cartridges) still have some serious speed on the printhead, and if you watch it print it puts down a lot of ink on each pass. I don't know if the high speed of the printhead itself will damage it but I won't be surprised if part of the carriage wears out fast.