Really in need of suggestions I have run out of ideas.

stratman said:

Mikling sells aftermarket cartridges with ARC chips ready for top refill for the MX922: http://www.precisioncolors.com/C5Ecart.html. Easy breezy, lemon squeezy.

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Excellent!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Can I assume this new Mx922 uses the same canon ink as my old one Mx892?

You can use the old ink for the 892 but the profiles etc will not hold. If some kind of color is all you seek then it is OK, physically they will work.

mikling said:

You can use the old ink for the 892 but the profiles etc will not hold. If some kind of color is all you seek then it is OK, physically they will work.

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Do you think the head on the old printer is scrap or worth saving?
Best way to store it if its worth saving?

pearlhouse said:

Do you think the head on the old printer is scrap or worth saving?
Best way to store it if its worth saving?

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I don't know about scrapping or saving the print head, but the following is pharmacist's recommendation for storing a print head:

http://www.printerknowledge.com/threads/how-to-store-a-print-head.6343/#post-47497

The print head is not worth keeping in its present state, and without print head the printer is not worth much in my opinion.

So I suggest that you try to clean the ink passages for magenta in the upper part of the print head, you have nothing to lose in my opinion. Even if I think mikling's leaky switch transistor theory is plausible, I still think ink starvation is the most likely cause of the problems.

I see in post #1 that you have already had the print head disassembled and that it survived. So I suggest to disassemble it again and with a syringe plus a suitable adapter force water or Windex through the magenta ink channels from the magenta ink inlet. A turkey baster or similar can also be used for this. As there are three magenta nozzle sets, I think you should see three jets of water from the underside of the upper print head part when forcing water through the ink inlet and the clogs have cleared.

Make sure there is no water/Windex on the ribbon cable and behind the circuit board on the back of the upper print head part, before testing the print head. In my opinion water or cleaning fluid left in these places is the worst risk of ruining the print head and possibly also the logic board.

I think this is worth trying before discarding the printer. If you are lucky your printer will be fully functional again.

The printhead that I dis-assembled was the original one that I found plugged up after I returned from a 3 week vacation. I played with it for about 3 weeks and finally gave up and disassembled it to try and clean it. When I put it back together and installed it the clogs appeared to be worse or I just screwed up the electronics. I did take my time with it and was very careful with the ribbon and its connection to the board. I am also sure it was dried properly by letting it set on a windex soaked paper towel just enough to keep the head wet and from clogging while the rest of the head had time to dry using a hair dryer and then placing it under a high intensity lamp at about 100f for a day.
The printhead Im talking about saving and storing was the replacement I bought to replace the first one. This one only worked for a couple of days and then started to act up with the Magenta problems. If this is truly an electrical problem with the logic board or some other internal electronics, then the head may still be good and worth hanging on to. Or is it possible that the electrical problem has messed up the head also. I just found out my grandson has a canon printer that uses the same head so Im considering giving it to him to try in his printer. Although now Im wondering if its possible that if the printhead is electrically bad that it might screw up his logic board in his printer and then I would owe him a new printer. So now Im thinking about taking this new one apart for cleaning as this may be the safest thing to do. I made up a set of adapters that fit on the end of a syringe and then fit over the screen filter bosses. I can force windex through them this way. So what do you think my BEST option is here????

Has anybody come up with a good way to push water or cleaner through the ceramic plate and out the micro ports or vice versa when the head is dis-assembled from the upper part which has the inlet ports???

pearlhouse said:

Has anybody come up with a good way to push water or cleaner through the ceramic plate and out the micro ports or vice versa when the head is dis-assembled from the upper part which has the inlet ports???

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Fold a paper towel multiple times to make a thick pad and wet it with your solution. GENTLY (using no more than a pound or two of force) press the ceramic plate against the wet pad, then release. This will force the solution through the nozzles. Repeat multiple times. When you are done, place it on a dry towel to wick out the solution and then hold it up to a strong light. You should be able to see directly through the nozzles in the area where the ink enters the nozzle plate on the top. Do you see any nozzles that don't pass light?

I have never seen any evidence of a blocked nozzle when doing this.

I reckon there would be no real point in taking this print head apart too, after all the first one didn’t fair out very well from your first exploratory operation.

I still think it would be well worth soaking it in some washing up liquid (Dawn) with a drop of Ammonia in it to help it a long, once you have pulled apart a print head it seldom works properly afterwards..

pearlhouse said:

I just found out my grandson has a canon printer that uses the same head so Im considering giving it to him to try in his printer. Although now Im wondering if its possible that if the printhead is electrically bad that it might screw up his logic board in his printer and then I would owe him a new printer.

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Don't do this!

A defective print head can damage the logic board, and a logic board that has been damaged this way can damage another print head. Even if I think Ink starvation is the cause of the problem, I cannot rule out that an electronic failure is present. You risk ruining your grandson's printer by asking him to test the suspect print head. Swapping print heads between printers for troubleshooting is generally a bad idea.

As all nozzles work when starting a print job, but the magenta fades away after some printing, I think the problems are not with the ceramic nozzle plate which should be left alone. I would do no cleaning attempts to the ceramic nozzle plate.

Instead I think the cause of the problems is ink starvation. This could be caused by a clogged cartridge or a clog somewhere in the upper part of the print head, either in the ink inlets or in the fine ink passages. As a new OEM cartridge made no difference the problem is most likely in the upper part of the print head.

So I would disassemble the print head and force Windex, pharmacist's cleaning solution, or even plain tap water through the ink channels from the ink inlets using a syringe and a suitable adapter.

Here is an adapter I made from a Luer-lock needle and a needle scabbard:



Cleaning a print head outside the printer is always risky and even more so when taking the print head apart, You risk ruining not only the print head but the logic board as well. But as I think the printer is already considered a write-off, I think you have nothing to lose by trying this cleaning. You might get a working printer.