What is your print head cleaning solution?

[Richie]

Might sound crazy, but on my Pro-100's I've been using "Simple Green" diluted 50% with distilled water for years now. Nuke a small amount for 30 seconds, wait a minute, fold a small piece of paper towel and just let it sit for 10-30 minutes. It has worked for me a ton of times.

I also have a small tube connected to a syringe that easily fits over the ports, and with very little pressure I can see if the clog is gone without having to waste time installing in the printer first, wasting ink, time etc..

Now, I'm facing a stubborn clog on 2 of my print heads, Black and Cyan are partially clogged on both and are not budging. The spray pattern is about 85% of what it should be, all the other colors are perfect.

Any ideas? Curious to try others solutions.

 

[PeterBJ]

"Simple Green" is a brand name. They make many products, so which one do you use?

I use and recommend two things, either "pharmacist's cleaning solution" or a window cleaner with ammonia. I use an "Ajax" window cleaner from Colgate-Palmolive. For the US the forum recommendation is to use the "Original Windex with Ammonia-D".

 

[Richie]

"Simple Green" is a brand name. They make many products, so which one do you use?

I use and recommend two things, either "pharmacist's cleaning solution" or a window cleaner with ammonia. I use an "Ajax" window cleaner from Colgate-Palmolive. For the US the forum recommendation is to use the "Original Windex with Ammonia-D".

I didn't even realize they had so many different products. I use the green one, that says all purpose cleaner. I started using it because a few years back I ordered some printhead cleaning solution and noticed that it was green and smelled exactly like Simple Green, but came in a tiny bottle. How does Windex compare to distilled water, ammonia and alcohol? I've only tried the knockoff brands and wasn't happy with the results, I will give the original a shot.

What is the process when using Windex? Do you warm it up?

 

[Richie]

Ok, so after about a week now, I'm seeing very little improvement, which is the longest it has ever taken me.

I decided to take one of the heads apart, the one that has shown 0 improvement. I see now that the clog is in the body and not the ceramic plate. Both the Cyan and Black have very poor flow with nothing installed.

Any suggestions on how to tackle the plastic body? Now that the electronics have been removed, I figure I can get a little crazy with it.

My next step will be removing the body from one of my many dead ones and attaching the electronics to it.

 

[stratman]

I decided to take one of the heads apart

Chances are high you have killed your print head. Canon print heads are not meant to be dissembled but it is considered on the forum to be a Hail Mary last gasp attempt.

Let us know how it works out.

 

[Richie]

Chances are high you have killed your print head. Canon print heads are not meant to be dissembled but it is considered on the forum to be a Hail Mary last gasp attempt.

Let us know how it works out.

I doubt that I've killed it. I've taken so many of these apart over the years now and they all still "worked", although still with the same clog as before. As long as you're careful and don't manhandle the thing, you should be ok. But I never thought to focus on the ports in the plastic body. Just wanted to see if anyone had any ideas on how to clean those, thinking of taking an electric toothbrush to the top of them.

Earlier today I installed the electronics from my clogged head onto one of my many dead heads plastic body and the spray pattern is a huge improvement. I haven't installed it yet, soaking it for a few more hours before I do so. Before this, the cyan and black channels were showing nothing on the nozzle check. The other clogged print head was showing about 85-90% on the nozzle check for the cyan and black. I will report back with new results soon.

Edit:
Question for those that have take it apart before. How do you go about replacing the rubber gasket? When I first open it, it looks like it's firmly attached to the ceramic plate by either adhesive or just pressure from it being there so long. It's fits easily on the plastic body, but I'm not sure if that's the ideal way to put it back on. Right now it's still on the ceramic plate, I only wanted to tackle the body, so I didn't remove it and it easily fit on the other body without messing wit it.

 

[Richie]

Update:
1 of the 2 print heads is at about 95% now, good enough to print in high quality mode with no issues. I'm going to continue to soak it after a few print jobs.

The other one has shown almost no improvement. I've hit it with everything (Windex, Simple Green, Boiling Water, Ammonia, Alcohol, Print head cleaner and even bleach!) Bleach almost killed it as it started throwing at 1405 error code even after cleaning the contacts with alcohol, it wasn't until I used a rubber eraser on it that it started working again.

I switched the body out for a different one with no improvement, so I guess the clog or problem is either in the nozzles or electronics. Although not a perfect pattern, I can get it to spray fairly decent with a syringe, however, the nozzle check shows nothing on Cyan and only a few lines on Black.

Ideas?

 

[Artur5]

Ideas ?.
I’m astonished that after the mistreatment that this poor printhead has suffered, there’s still a single nozzle alive. Bleach, pure ammonia, boiling water... What’s next, melted lead .?

Seriously, there’re 99.99% of chances that those cyan and black nozzles are kaput, Maybe it was possible to restore the printhead back to normal before your refined tortures; now it’s not.

 

[The Hat]

Ideas ?.
I’m astonished that after the mistreatment that this poor printhead has suffered, there’s still a single nozzle alive. Bleach, pure ammonia, boiling water... What’s next, melted lead .?

+100 ....

 

[Richie]

Ideas ?.
I’m astonished that after the mistreatment that this poor printhead has suffered, there’s still a single nozzle alive. Bleach, pure ammonia, boiling water... What’s next, melted lead .?

Seriously, there’re 99.99% of chances that those cyan and black nozzles are kaput, Maybe it was possible to restore the printhead back to normal before your refined tortures; now it’s not.

Mistreatment? I suppose the garbage bin would have been a better solution? Clearly these are last ditch efforts before it goes in a landfill. At this point, after all conventional methods have been exhausted with zero change for 2 weeks, it shouldn't matter if I wanted to deep fry it, dump it in acid, hit the plate with a hammer, it's still something before letting go. Seriously, I don't understand why such a big deal is always made when the next obvious step is the trash.

I'm not new to this, I make my living with my pro-100's and have been manually unclogging them for years now, just here looking to share/seek advice to see if there is anything I haven't tried. At this point extreme measures are welcomed. As long as you don't start picking at the nozzle plate, these things are tanks and can take a beating.