Clog in Filter Screen, is there a way to disassemble?

[nanosec]

Long story short, I have a heck of a clog in an ip4600 print head. I sometimes get bad ones where I have to disassemble the print head, pull the gasket and clear it and clear the ceramic holes.
I have narrowed the clog down to between the screen and the opposite side before it hits the gasket and ceramic.
(so ceramic and gasket are clear)
On this particular one, the old tube over the ink inlet port is not working, (the tube is flying off when I apply air or liquid pressure)
So, I'm wondering if there is a technique to remove the screens and unclog them and what's below?

 

[rodbam]

On the heads you have disassembled before what glue did you use to put them back together?
I assume you have tried all the usual head cleaning methods like soaking in very warm water then Windex etc.
Others can advise you about the removing the screens, good luck.

 

[nanosec]

On the Canon, it's 2 screws to separate the gasket/ceramic from the plastic carriage body. The nozzles are still attached by the ribbon. I have not detached the print head nozzles from the ceramic piece.
Yes tried all the usual methods. Very frustrating.

 

[The Hat]

Long story short, I have a heck of a clog in an ip4600 print head. I sometimes get bad ones where I have to disassemble the print head, pull the gasket and clear it and clear the ceramic holes.
I have narrowed the clog down to between the screen and the opposite side before it hits the gasket and ceramic.
(so ceramic and gasket are clear)
On this particular one, the old tube over the ink inlet port is not working, (the tube is flying off when I apply air or liquid pressure)
So, I'm wondering if there is a technique to remove the screens and unclog them and what's below?

A print head should be left inside your printer at all times to allow the printer itself
to take care of its own cleaning and maintenance which it is usually pretty good at it.

However if for some other reason you feel it cant, then rinsing the head with water or allowing it to stand in a cleaning solution for a while is usually sufficient to resolve a clog, other than that there is nothing else you should do with it within reason.

Dismantling pieces from your print head rarely achieves anything other than the total loss
of the print head altogether however you can get lucky and it will still function properly later.

Poor quality output and missing colours can be misinterpreted easily as nozzle clogs but are more often down to poor ink delivery from the cartridges above and in fact are not print head related at all.

Have you ever asked yourself why you regularly get these problems with your print head in the first place, could it be a problem with your inks, refilling procedure or poor cartridges?

Another thing that tends to get overlooked early into any print problems is the purge unit itself,
checking to see if it is functioning properly is a relative easy thing to do that doesnt require any dismantling.

Canon Print heads on occasions can clog but a normal cleaning cycle usually clears the problem quickly and you can continue to print normally again..

 

[panos]

I don't think its possible to dismantle the screens.

What I did was to attach a large syringe without a needle at each ink hole in the plastic body and quickly draw air (Grandad had used 100 psi of compressed air). Proper flow was then restored.

 

[nanosec]

However if for some other reason you feel it cant, then rinsing the head with water or allowing it to stand in a cleaning solution
for a while is usually sufficient to resolve a clog, other than that there is nothing else you should do with it within reason.

Dismantling is a last resort for me.

Dismantling pieces from your print head rarely achieves anything other than the total loss
of the print head altogether however you can get lucky and it will still function properly later.

I have carefully reassembled and disassembled about 4-5 print heads when clogs were bad enough that warranted it, but mind you, I did sit them in solution for a few days. Whilst it is extreme, it's only a last resort before I replace the printer or print head.

Poor quality output and missing colours can be misinterpreted easily as nozzle clogs but are more often
down to poor ink delivery from the cartridges above and in fact are not print head related at all.

I do agree, but it's really easy to tell if there is a clog when you put a tube over the screen and apply pressure through the tube. A free flowing nozzle squirts easily while a clogged one does not.

Have you ever asked yourself why you regularly get these problems with your print head in the first place,
could it be a problem with your inks, refilling procedure or poor cartridges?

Yes, I have several other printers and I was getting a clog every other day using image specialists ink, in particular the magenta and cyan. I switched them all over to OCP and 99% of my clogs went away. This one printer, cyan remained a problem and I'd have to manually unclog it every so often. I ran this printer hard and my guess is that some residue remained from the image specialists ink. (I suspect they are not using enough anti fungal chemicals in their magenta and cyan inks)
The clog was not in the nozzles or the gasket but between the screen and the plastic out ports before it hit the gasket.

Another thing that tends to get overlooked early into any print problems is the purge unit itself,
checking to see if it is functioning properly is a relative easy thing to do that doesnt require any dismantling.

Purge unit looked okay, did the windex on the park pads test.

Canon Print heads on occasions can clog but a normal cleaning cycle usually clears the problem quickly
and you can continue to print normally again..

Normal/Deep cleaning cycles would occasionally work, but I found that it was hit or miss on the length of time before the next clog. Clearing the clog manually with a tube and syringe over the screen seemed to give me a considerable amount of time before the next clog, whereas sometimes I'd get lucky on a normal or deep cleaning cycle only to have it clog a few minutes later. As i said, I finally attributed it to the Image Specialists ink which was causing all the problems.
(this is my own personal experience with the stuff, yellow,pigment black,dye black from IS are not a problem, just their Magenta and Cyan)

The real test is when i put a new printer into the mix which has never had Image Specialists ink run through it. (I'm curious to see what kind of longevity I'll get)


This most recent troublesome clog has been the 2nd of such difficult clogs. The 1st time, I pulled out the head, and put a spare in and soaked the 1st head for about month after I forgot about it. I then tried the tube over the screen and it was still clogged.
(this was before i switched to OCP) (clog was in the same place, not in the nozzles or the gasket but between the screen and the underside before it hit the gasket)

So IMHO it's some type of residue build up under the screen, given the large amount of printing I've done using IS ink. I've had stubborn clogs, but this one was a beast, I've written the printer off and got an MG3520 to replace my 4700.
(I was almost going to replace the print head, but the new printer was $10 more)

One last thing. IS inks in 1p4300 and ip4500 rarely gave me problems. My mp500 would occasionally clog but could always be cleared using a cleaning cycle.

The IP4600 & IP4700 printers would clog on IS ink frequently. (using OEM carts)

While I prefer the performance of Canon printers over Epson, I have had several issues with the way Canon does things to ensure that their products have a definite end of life. I still have 4300 & 4500 chugging away that rarely give me problems no matter what ink I throw at them. I can tell you that I even discovered in the ip4300 & ip4500 would blacklist a cartridge after so many refills (this was before the resetter existed) and come back with an unrecognized error. After i got my hands on a resetter, these unrecognized cartridges magically were no longer unrecognized.

The conspiracy theorist in me believes that the print heads in ip4600 & 4700's (and anything newer) are a lot more sensitive to what ink you are using, whether by design or by fluke, is anybody's guess.

 

[FussyBob]

I experince your same findings. IS ink works fine in my Canon PRO9000 MK II and IP4300, but clogs very quickly (one or two days) in my IP4700. The IS formula is different for the IP4700, than the ink set for the other two printers. The two different OCP ink sets I use in the 3 printers have no clogging even if they sit for a month or so of no use. There is just something strange about that IP4700, IS ink set.



Bob P.

 

[rodbam]

I've just demolished my pro9000 print head to see if I could see why my PM was streaking & the screens seemed to be glued to the ceramic. The only way I could see inside was to scrape the screen off & it appeared to be made of a glass like substance, it just shatters & splinters into small shards or dust. So I don't think it's possible to remove them without damage.

 

[Emulator]

Rod

I hope you are going to show us pictures of the bits!!

I am still curious to see the inside of the 9000 II head.

Regards

Ian

 

[The Hat]

Rod

I hope you are going to show us pictures of the bits!!

I am still curious to see the inside of the 9000 II head.

Regards

Ian

Emulator wrote:
If the print head is finally dead, I hope you will not leave it there, but when, (if), you feel inclined, you will unscrew the pro9000 print head and complete the set of photos of the inside. It's the bit no one sees, but all wonder about!

PeterBJ a while back supplied you with a fair bit of reading on these prints head by Grandad35
and numerous of photos from them both as well, was that not enough.

http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=56210#p56210

Why would you think that rodbams print head is any different than any other print Head,
whats with your continued curiosity anyway, if there some other reason ?