Magenta suddenly very, very faint on 9000-2 nozzle check

[l_d_allan]

Keep going it sounds like you are getting somewhere good luck with it.

Thanks for the encouragement ... doesn't seem like much progress is happening. After doing the cleaning, having the nozzle check still be very, very faint was very discouraging / frustrating.

The print-head is currently drying. After several hours of that, here is something I'm considering to try, and appreciate feedback ...

* Rather than put in regular CLI-8 carts with ink, and see if it is now unclogged, I may put in a complete set of 8 "cleaning carts" that are filled with 1/3rd Windex and 2/3 distilled water, and reset to indicate full. These carts have been thoroughly purged/flushed.

* Do enough deep cleaning + nozzle check cycles of the CMY Group-2 for one of the three to report Low ink level ... could be 4 to 8+ cycles.

* Check after every two deep clean cycles on how much the solution level is dropping for the Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow carts (others shouldn't change much).

* My expectation is that if the Magenta is unclogged, it's solution level will drop about the same as the Cyan and Yellow. If it hasn't dropped, then the Magenta nozzles are still clogged.

* BTW, here's a photo of the print-head, shot with a 100mm macro lens at nearly 1:1. There is a gray-card next to it for white-balance.

 

[The Hat]

l_d_allan

Im sure it didnt take long to clog your print head but it will take longer to free it up again.
Just so long as youre making progress thats all that matters the end word is Patience.
The picture of the print head is brilliant And my diagnosis is...It will live..

 

[l_d_allan]

Im sure it didnt take long to clog your print head but it will take longer to free it up again.

I suppose ... sigh ...

Just so long as youre making progress thats all that matters the end word is Patience.

Well, I appreciate the encouragement, but actually I don't yet have any concrete progress. The nozzle check yesterday was just as very, very faint as when I noticed the problem. There is potential progress in that I could see Magenta ink coming out of the head when I had the cleaning-cart dripping into it.

The picture of the print head is brilliant And my diagnosis is...It will live..

FYI: here's a full resolution near 1:1 macro shot ... a bit closer than before and with a few puffs from a RocketBlower. It doesn't compare to the binocular microscope pictures from ghwellsjr , but it is from a 9000-2 rather than different MP780.

From top to bottom, I believe the nozzles are for PhotoCyan, Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow.

I did write to Canon tech support with an abbreviated description of the problem encountered. I heard back from them, and they are willing to exchange the print-head. It seemed that if the printer is in warranty, and deep cleaning doesn't resolve the problem, their response is to allow an exchange.

I haven't decided whether to take them up on it or not. I'd like to get this print-head unclogged and working again. I anticipate doing a lot of printing in the future, and clog-fixing seems to be part of the skills you should have for that.

 

[pharmacist]

Hi allan,

Did you notice the symmetric printhead: 5 channels left and 5 channels right and guess what: only 8 colours....
I have speculated a few years ago about this particular design and it turned out that the right bank only 3 nozzle rows are used and 2 left unused.

So if you print a nozzle check you will have bank 1 and bank 2: and 2 gaps in bank 2.

Why ? the printhead is possible the same design used in the Canon Pro 9500 with the 2 banks activated: grey and matte black. And there are the 2 unused nozzle rows revived to used these 2 extra colours.

Search on my experiment using pigment ink in the Canon i9950, which uses the same printhead as in the Pro 9000 and be amazed with the results. It worked better than I thought, but the used pigment ink in my experiment does not seem to adhere well on the used paper, so I stopped the experiment, but physically the Pro 9000 printhead is very likely able to use pigment ink.

 

[RMM]

If I wasn't afraid to completely ruin my printhead I would probably try the pigment ink in mine

I have some ConeColors Epson pigment ink laying around... all the appropriate colors except the Red/Green which aren't too crucial. Of course a profile would have to be made.

 

[l_d_allan]

Did you notice the symmetric printhead: 5 channels left and 5 channels right and guess what: only 8 colours....

Actually, I didn't. I really didn't pay that much attention to it, but if anything, I thought it was 4 channels on each side. I was counting solid yellow'ish / gold'ish bars, and ignoring the half bars. I suppose the proper way is to count the dark channels, which are surrounded by the gold'ish bars.

 

[pharmacist]

I would stay away from Epson compatible pigment inks, because of the different printing technology. I had a sample set sent by Mikling for the HP B9180 printer, which uses technically the same bubblejet technology (boiling ink, vapour pushes the ink droplet onto the paper). I had used Image Specialists pigment ink in my Canon i9950, but this gave me horrible ghosting, because the ink continously stayed dripping from the nozzles. The HP B9180 compatible inkset did the job, but I think it would be even better to use Canon Imagegraf IPF5000 compatible pigment ink.

 

[l_d_allan]

nifty-stuff.com with similar problem back in 2006

All of a sudden my yellow stopped printing. Completely died. It was so sudden and complete I thought I had run out of ink. The cart was 50% full so I ran a cleaning cycle... nothing. Replaced with a cart I knew was good... nothing. Ran another cleaning cycle... nothing. Absolutely no yellow. What's odd is that the yellow was fine the day before and then it just died. No streaking, no ghosting, no nothin'!

My situtation appers to be similar to what Rob experienced (except magenta), but my initial head unclogging attempt didn't help. But I'm an unclogging newbie, and glad to be able to find out what others have done to be able to get back to printing.

 

[RMM]

If it's indeed dead... I would take Canon up on their offer to replace the printhead.

 

[ghwellsjr]

That fact that you have seen magenta ink flowing through the print head and yet it won't print very much magenta is evidence that the print head has an unfixable electrical problem. I would take Canon's offer and get the print head replaced.