A day of futility...End of life failure???

[nanosec]

Funny thing, I went and did a cleaning + a print and red came back, nice and streaky. It looked exactly like a cartridge that needed purging.

I decided to just go ahead and try a new cartridge along with a new yellow. Guess what? It prints perfectly, going to try using it today to see if my luck has held out.
I'm feeling very sheepish, I swear to god I purged the problem carts, but it seems it could be one of 2 things:

1. cart wasn't purged enough
2. or yellow was starving out red. (I was considering putting the old yellow back in to see if it did indeed starve the red out.)

I guess my new troubleshooting step is: Even if it's purged, try a new cart, *just in case*

I am humbled yet again.

Thanks guys, I'm awfully embarrassed to be caught like this. The only reason I didn't try a new cartridge was I moved a *good* cartridge that was printing into the printer.
I'll definitely have to try the old yellow back into the mix.

Just when i think I know everything to try, I always get nailed on the simple things. I'm pretty darn happy the printhead is fine, but I'm going to try OCP magenta next time round
because it seems all my problems revolve around magenta.

I almost didn't want to post my results because I was so embarrassed, but I figured I owed to you guys.

So my last question, is this:

Have you ever seen a cartridge starve another one out?

 

[nche11]

Are you sure you really need to purge the magenta cartridge? My understanding of this is if it is a PGI-5 with pigment black ink you may benefit from purging it. But it it is a CLI-8 or whatever with dye inks you really never need to purge them, except maybe when you get one that has been sit for a long while before you attempt to refill it. You should only purge one when it is contaminated with wrong color of ink.

If you need to purge one you may want to ask why it needs to be purged. Has the cartridge grown algae inside? There have been numerous reports that Image Specialists ink could cause algae to grow inside cartridges and clog the sponges under some combination of conditions. Throughout my entire 6 years of refilling for several Canon printers I never came across one single incident that required me to purge a Canon OEM cartridge with dye ink. I did try to purge some of them but eventually I stopped the practice and nothing ever made me to need to purge a single one. It may be a different story for cartridges with pigment ink. However, I have stopped purging my PGI-5 cartridges for many months. One of my PGI-5 gets refilled almost weekly yet it works perfectly without purging. But a second PGI-5 is somewhat different. However, purging it did not improve much so I put it aside and will use it as a spare.

Anyway, talks about the need of purging ink cartridges is a controversial subject to me. Perhaps you want to look into the scenario that maybe it is the ink that is the culprit. Think about it. If you are refilling OEM cartridges and if it tends to kill your magenta print head repeatedly it seems to me between the print head and the ink I would think it is the ink that needs to be looked into. How likely will Canon have a flaw in the magenta channel of its print heads? Physically (mechanically) a magenta channel is really not different from cyan channel. Yellow and black channels may be different in nozzle count and size. But it seems to me magenta and cyan channels are always the same. I don't think I am simply luckier. Other than an ip4700 I have had many very old canon printers including ip42000, ip4200, ip4300 and MP780s. I never came across a need to purge any of my color cartridges.

 

[RMM]

I don't think that purging is always necessary, but it is a useful tool.

I use pharmacist's purging solution. Distilled water/isopropyl alcohol/a touch of propylene glycol.

There are two reasons to purge:
1. Solve inkflow problems.
2. Change ink types without waiting a few fills for the colors to stabilize.

 

[nanosec]

Just a follow up, I've had two more clogs with this ink, (it may be the age of the ink, i've had it for a year or so)
A combination of purging and clearing the printhead with tubing and windex has seemed to keep me going.

The magenrta clogging has occurred on another printer, so i am chalking it up to the ink causing me the problems.

 

[neilslade]

I am finding that keeping my ip4600 running for a long length of time is nearly impossible, especially with aftermarket carts and refilled carts.

Something has changed in the way these printers draw ink- and they are not the same as my old ip3000 or ip4000- which worked well for a long time and had no real problem with refilled carts.

The ip4600 is something else entirely, and I'm really sick and tired of coaxing this printer to work.

Recently tried MIS empty carts, and could not get these suckers to work for more than a couple of prints. At first, I was pissed at MIS- but the tech said they worked great in other models.

I am coming to the conclusion that the ip4600 is just a hunk of junk. Worked for a while-- now its a daily struggle.

Not recommended.

 

[nche11]

I am coming to the conclusion that the ip4600 is just a hunk of junk. Worked for a while-- now its a daily struggle.

Not recommended.

This may be true but it is yet to be confirmed by many more printers failing the same way.

Have you thought of a possibility that it was the ink, or ink cartridges that you used being the cause of the premature death of the print head? Reason for this question is it used to be the main causes of Canon print head failures (mainly clogging really) when the cartridges were non chipped and there were lots and lots of compatible prefilled cartridges available cheap for the majority of people to snap from eBay, computer stores and flea markets. Ever since Canon put chips on the cartridges it had effectively reduced the number of clogging complaints on the internet.

Don't under estimate how important correct amount of ink flow is to the the nozzles. We yet have to find more failures to make a conclusion. I seem to have seem more reports of clogging issues with Image Specialists inks. It has always been like that. If you have a habit of printing a full page of a single color you will more likely to reveal the problem of an ink or ink cartridge. Printing a full page of a single color gives a highest demand for accurate amount of ink flow to the nozzles, to print as well as to cool the heaters in the nozzles. If you are not sure about an ink's ability to do that don't test it. There are very few brands of ink that allows you to do that safely.

 

[nanosec]

I have the ip4600 and the ip4700, on the problem printers I thinned the ink using alcohol, so far my clogs have stopped, i do get the odd one, but the tube method works really well for me to clean the head.

 

[fotofreek]

nche11 - a bit of non-oem ink history: Neilslade's web site predated this forum and was the most complete aftermarket ink for Canon printers site on the internet. He was the person who was most knowledgeable regarding printer maintenance, problem prevention, and selection of inks. He recommended frequent printing to keep the printheads working without clogging.

His recommendation, which I followed, was to buy a Canon i960 printer and purchase ink from MIS or Computer Friends for refilling. He was of the opinion that the MIS ink for Canons was Image Specialist, and my experience backs up that view.Neil was one of the people who helped to found this forum. He participated by giving us the benefit of his experience for quite some time at the beginning of the forum, and it is good to see him back again.

In my two i960's and two ip5000's I've found Image Specialist inks to be excellent and safe for my printers. I haven't seen a great number of complaints about clogging from this ink - no more than other brands. All inks, including Canon OEM, can clog. That's why they all have cleaning cycles.

 

[printfan1138]

I also had the magenta problem with a Canon. It would not work then started dumping so much magenta on the page the paper was soaked, and I mean , soaked! That was years ago and I print with Epson printers these days. I never did figure out why the problems with just one color and thought it was a fluke until reading this blog! My printer was a Canon I960 also and printed some really great pictures right up to the magenta failure!