Unused Canon ip5200 will not work - 12 alternating flashes

[barfl2]

Mediokrates Amazing post and tribute to your persistence. On glue have you tried Epoxy preferably the 24hour version although 2 hour type might work. In the UK obtain from hardware shops or model aircraft shop. Do not think superglue will work. I recently tried repairing a plastic part and it failed. Plastics are in any event dificult to cement. sometimes you can fuse the material with a small soldering iron, but this might not be any good for your problem. Again on small gears the Model flying hobby use them in servos and Model shops would sellpacks of various sizes very cheaply. I presumer you have asked Canon for a replacement? Good luck

 

[emerald]

Mediokrates: I'm part of a group that's following your informative posts and tenacious efforts. I have had good results repairing plastic parts with an epoxy cement found in most U.S hardware stores. (Ace Hardware) It comes in two tubes which must be mixed together in equal parts just prior to its application. The repair should dry and cure for about 24 hours. It's called JB WELD.

 

[Mediokrates]

Hi Guys,

Something new... Maybe a setback, maybe not. Last night when I was testing the printer, I was getting through startup and ending with a solid green light; however my ink cartridges were not lighting up. The carriage was parking over the purge unit.
Today, I tried startup, and now I'm getting a blinking green power light. Continuous, no repeating pattern. However, the ink cartridges are lighting up. The carriage is parking in the middle.
Is this good or bad?

I think I was playing around with the auto paper feed last night. Oops.
But well, the paper selector was set to cartridge last night, and wouldn't change. Now however, it selects between cartridge and auto.

barfl2... I'm looking around hobby stores, but there's not too many in the city I live in. I would prefer to get a replacement gear rather than cementing the original in place. I haven't actually contacted Canon for one yet, but I'll try right now. I have doubts since they blew me off when I asked for a tech manual on the purge unit, saying I should take it in. Worth a shot anyway. I'll keep checking the hobby shops though... I didn't even think about finding an appropriate epoxy there.

emerald... Thanks for the support and interest. I'll check out the JB Weld. I'm gonna head over to the hardware store and see whats what.

For anyone who might be interested, I plan on taking photos of all the parts in the purge unit as I put it back together. I've heard replacements sell for $60. What a crock! It's actually just a bunch of plastic gears and a couple rubber tubes. Before I started, I was hesitant to take it apart, but now that I have, it's actually very simple. If there was any fairness in the world, a replacement would cost $5... retail.

Like I said, I think they're made to eventually fail, or come apart.

Thanks for all the support!

 

[Redbrickman]

There is another good glue used by modellers in USA. It is called Gorilla glue and is sold in a lot of hardware stores etc.

I have used it for sticking plastic to wood, foam etc. also bonds carbon fibre so it might be worth a try. If you do get though be vert careful not to use too much as it expands a fair bit and sets rock hard in about 1 hr.

http://uk.gorillaglue.com/eng/glues/glue-list/1/11/pen-dries-white-gorilla-glue.html

Good luck.

 

[Mediokrates]

Hi all,

I've got some questions for y'all...

I decided to test the printer as is. I've had a few problems which I think are related.

I mentioned a post or 2 ago, that my ink cartridges were lighting up. I realized that the top cover microswitch which I had taped down had come loose. Taping it back down, resulted in the cartridges turning off, and the carriage returning to a parked position over the purge unit.

Is this normal?

Now the ink tanks have been in the printhead for a few months, since I first tried to set up the printer and this all started.

I've tried to run a printhead alignment, but nothing prints out. I've done a couple cleaning and deep cleaning cycles with nozzle checks.

At one point I received a printhead error. Upon removing the printhead and replacing, the error cleared.

When I try a nozzle check or printhead alignment, the printer goes through the motions, but no ink is transferred to the paper.
Is the printhead gummed up now?

Any ideas?

 

[emerald]

"I mentioned a post or 2 ago, that my ink cartridges were lighting up. I realized that the top cover microswitch which I had taped down had come loose. Taping it back down, resulted in the cartridges turning off, and the carriage returning to a parked position over the purge unit."

You might want to consider this: On the stand-alone Canon printers I'm familiar with - i960, i560, etc - when you open the lid to change cartridges, the microswitch is CLOSED or operated which calls for the carriage to move to the mid position. When you close the lid or remove the top part of the case to work on the printer, the microswitch is OPEN or unoperated which is the normal operating condition. Also, if you leave the printer lid open (microswitch CLOSED or operated) for a period of time exceeding 1-2 minutes, the carriage will eventually return to the parked position over the purge unit. This is why the power cord should be pulled if the print head locking lever is to be left up for a time. If the power is on, after a period of time, the carriage will attempt to return home slamming the upraised locking lever into the upper lid which could cause some serious damage.

My guess is that after you taped the microswitch down, after a period of time, the carriage returned home and shut off the cartridge lights.

 

[Mediokrates]

Thanks emerald,

So, from what you've written the carriage is moving properly. Mid-position when lid is open, parked right when closed. It also sounds as if the cartridge lights are supposed to be off, when the lid is closed, which mine are doing.



Anyone have any ideas on why there is no ink on the paper after a nozzle check, and why the printhead alignment fails.
The cartridges are the originals.
Excuse the terminology here, because I don't know it....
The pad in the cartridges, where the ink transfers to the carriage screens are wet, and when pressed with a papertowel release ink.

Would this mean that it is probably the printhead?
It has been sitting for a loooong time, with the cartridges installed. Could it be clogged? If so, is there I way to manually unclog it? I've read something about soaking it somewhere.

Like I said, I've run multiple clean and deep clean cycles, and still no ink was printed onto the paper.
I've removed the printhead, and found ink on it, as well as the purge unit wiper.

I've read something about priming the printhead with windex on the purge pads. Would this help?

 

[on30trainman]

If you are getting no ink at all when you do a nozzle check, it appears that your printhead is not getting any drive signals. That is, no electrical pulses are getting to the printhead. Is it possible that you may have disconnected a cable during your teardown and it didn't get reconnected? I would expect that even a partially clogged printhead would deposit some ink during the nozzle check. It could be you have a completely clogged head. One thing you could try would be to remove the cartridges, take the printhead out of the printer and soak the printhead in a tray of Windex overnight. Also put some Windex on those screen like cartridge nozzles and let it sit overnight. Clean off with water and make sure the printhead is completely dry before reinstalling.
When you do a head cleaning (either Regular or Deep) no signals go to the printhead. The purge units try to suck ink through the head to loosen and clean out dry ink. Don't try too many nozzle checks if ink isn't flowing - that can burn out a printhead.

Steve W.

 

[emerald]

You don't mention any flashing lights indicating an electronic type of failure. There is a failure that the logic card can not detect and that is a failure of the purge unit to purge-suck-prime? ink from the print heads. I suggest that you make a simple test as described by InkJet Master ghwellsjr on this post. If the purge system is not priming the print head, there will be NO ink showing up on the paper. It can be other problems but I suggest that you start with the test just described and we can go from there.

We are learning from your persistant efforts.

 

[Mediokrates]

Thanks emerald,

As I said, the purge unit is not fully reassembled at this time... but is installed.

The purge unit has tubes running from the purge pads, into a cylindrical housing. I noted in my earlier posts that I believed one of the carousel-cylinder units within this housing was the initial cause of the breakdown, as the cylinder was separating from the carousel.

I am currently correcting a small warp in the carousel which I believe is allowing its cylinder to come loose and then jam the unit (the purge tube is wrapped around both, and then squeezed as the carousel & cylinder spin).

At this time, the purge tubes are not connected to their carousels and are hanging free.

So perhaps this explains it. Without the purge unit fully functional, it cannot prime? the printhead.

I was just curious as to whether I could get the printer to print at this stage, and to see if any other problems cropped up before the purge unit is fully repaired and reinstalled.

That's why I reinstalled the purge unit as is... to see if the start up routine would finish and to see if any more error messages would appear.
As far as I can tell, the start up finishes properly, and no flashing error messages appear.

I guess it was just wishful thinking that I could get the printer to actually print without the purge unit fully reassembled.

So I think you have it.

I do believe that the printhead is probably clogged, so I'm trying the windex idea suggested by trainman as well.