PC Photo Magenta plugging?

[Richie]

Glad to hear I'm not the only one having this issues, I found this post after googling for some help regarding these clogs. I have two pro-100's and have gone through about 8 printheads in about a year and a half. All of them being the PM, M or both. I consider my use of the printers more on the heavy side, printing about 500 full color 4x6's weekly so the printer never has a chance to develop a clog due to non use.

I do refill my cartridges with ink from Precision Colors.

Some things I've noticed is that both the M and PM cartridges after a few refills take the ink much slower over time than the other colors (that is from the reservoir to the sponge). So I decided to reflush them and noticed that both now had what seemed like a permanent ink stain on the bottom of the cartridge and along the wall where the sponge and tank connect. This wasn't there when I first flushed the cartridge with the oem ink, it happened after a few refills.

I can't help but feel that this has something to do with it, it's too big of a coincidence that the channels that always get clogged also seem to develop this strange symptom on the cart.

What I'm thinking is that there may in fact be something going on with the ink going bad somehow and developing a small clog inside the cartridge which in turn now feeds ink to the printhead at a much slower rate, which may increase the chances of it burning out. Or, the same clog that is happening inside the cartridge may also be happening inside the printhead, they are both equally as impossible to get rid of once it happens.

just my .02 from my experiences

I see precision colors is now offering a new formula for their magentas so I will definitely give those a try before I go all oem on the magentas to see if that makes a difference.

 

[palombian]

Again I don’t know that (New formula ?) But it may not just be the Yellow.

I had similar problems using Prodinks with pigment Magenta..

The issue is IMO not related with this post, but an illustration how difficult it is to define the real cause.

I suppose this was in the IX7000/MX7600.
It was my idea to try Prodinks since I had banding problems with IS magenta on those printers .
Not our best experience, but I think it was due to the fact that these printheads are different than the PRO9500 ones where the ink was produced for.
I had the clogging with the Cyan and Yellow, and as far The Hat reported, it was random in his printer too.
My MX7600 ( in hindsight one of the best AIO's Canon produced, if you can live with it's quirks) runs since 6 months with a combo of IS Cyan, Yellow and Photo Black, and Prodinks Magenta and Matte Black without problems.

My personal conclusion is that there was a banding problem (never a clog) with IS pigment ink. It is also slightly visible on the PRO9500 in standard quality but absent in high quality so no harm (I had 3 different Magenta batches).
The cause of the clogs with some Prodinks pigments is not found until now. I empty the Cyan bottle in the PRO9500 without problems (did not dare the Yellow yet).

If you don't experiment you can't learn.

Trying the Prodinks dyes on Canon 525/526 printers was very successful, I am really pleased with these inks.

 

[mikling]

http://www.printerknowledge.com/thr...and-the-dye-ink-magenta-issue-on-canons.9694/

 

[Grazer5]

Well, good to hear that mikling is on the case! I just completed that monster job that I was talking about a while back and it cost us 6 printheads. This was almost 22,000 sheets mind you!

There is a definite problem with the magentas not flowing properly, even after a good flushing with Pharmacist's solution. I'm not getting the staining like Richie, but we often have to pull the fill plug to get them to flow. I am actually having this show up on other colors now too, specifically Light Gray and Cyan.

During that long run, I had to stop to do another run of 1300 sheets that was predominantly red. I expected the worst, and sure enough I had 5 machines all suffer clogging within an hour.Luckily It was after that run, when I restarted the other one. Strangely, one head came back to normal on it's own accord after a couple of days! With no special cleaning?

This stuff is really wicked. I have a power flush attachment for a tap which couldn't clear the photo magenta nozzles at all, even after soaking in the solution for 2 days!

 

[Roy Sletcher]

Well, good to hear that mikling is on the case! I just completed that monster job that I was talking about a while back and it cost us 6 printheads. This was almost 22,000 sheets mind you!

There is a definite problem with the magentas not flowing properly, even after a good flushing with Pharmacist's solution. I'm not getting the staining like Richie, but we often have to pull the fill plug to get them to flow. I am actually having this show up on other colors now too, specifically Light Gray and Cyan.

During that long run, I had to stop to do another run of 1300 sheets that was predominantly red. I expected the worst, and sure enough I had 5 machines all suffer clogging within an hour.Luckily It was after that run, when I restarted the other one. Strangely, one head came back to normal on it's own accord after a couple of days! With no special cleaning?

This stuff is really wicked. I have a power flush attachment for a tap which couldn't clear the photo magenta nozzles at all, even after soaking in the solution for 2 days!

Sorry to hear about your difficulties with your long print runs on the Pro-100. You are printing mind boggling quantities compared to my output.

On the plus side you, should have some insights into the most economical place and price to purchase pro-100 print heads.

I purchased a spare for my Pro100 on ebay last year. With shipping and tax cost me around C$100.

Roy Sletcher

 

[Grazer5]

We did buy some from a place in the States, World Class Ink, at a very good price of $85 ea. Unfortunately, the machine that I put them into wouldn't print the group2 colors so I sent them back thinking they were faulty. It was the bloody printer! Now he won't do business with us

Tried one from China. The dude sent us a used piece of crap that he said was "refurbished" Worse than the one it replaced!

I'm still looking.

 

[The Hat]

@Grazer 5 It would be interesting to see if soaking the duff heads that you have already replaced in a solution of washing up liquid, Ammonia and water, 10 ml / 5 ml/ and 5cm deep of water in a large bowl.

Just leave them there for a week or so and then try a couple of test prints when you get some time on your hands, it’s possible that you might save a couple of them.

There has been reports going back quite some time now of print head failure in the 8 + cartridge heads and not all of them were running 3rd party ink either, and I have reckoned that there is a fault in these heads from the very start.

It could be caused by awful lot of things including 3rd party ink however my money is on an electrical failure due to overheating, it was one of the reasons that @turbguy originally recommended that we should run these printers in Quiet Mode as a preventive method, we still don’t know if that idea works..

 

[Roy Sletcher]

We did buy some from a place in the States, World Class Ink, at a very good price of $85 ea. Unfortunately, the machine that I put them into wouldn't print the group2 colors so I sent them back thinking they were faulty. It was the bloody printer! Now he won't do business with us

Tried one from China. The dude sent us a used piece of crap that he said was "refurbished" Worse than the one it replaced!

I'm still looking.

Good to know facts.

I had been warned off from buying print heads from China. According to my informant (from another printing website, and forget the name off-hand) even the supposed new virgin Canon print heads from China are in many cases inferior refurbished heads, and the vendors have perfected the methodology of packing them in what appears to be the identical wrapping to the genuine Canon print heads.

I know the Chinese prices are hard to resist. Truly a case of buyer beware. In many cases the description contains little or no resemblance to what is delivered.

Full disclosure - I do buy items from trusted Chinese vendors, but test them very cautiously with small non critical items first. (eg Canon lenshood for $10.00 delivered versus $45.00 plus tax from local Canon dealer. A no-brainer to me - sorry Turbguy.

All anecdotal and unsubstantiated at this stage, but take heed!

RS

 

[ThrillaMozilla]

During that long run, I had to stop to do another run of 1300 sheets that was predominantly red. I expected the worst, and sure enough I had 5 machines all suffer clogging within an hour.Luckily It was after that run, when I restarted the other one. Strangely, one head came back to normal on it's own accord after a couple of days! With no special cleaning?

Grazer, I don't have time to review your history in detail, but it sounds like what you get if there is air in the sponge. Getting some air in the sponge is somewhat inevitable, but as far as I know, nothing can remove it except vacuum filling. I understand that flushing with the right fluid probably helps some (by some mechanism I don't understand), but I can't imagine that it is completely effective.

I suggest you try Freedom Filling, at least for that color, and see if that helps. GHWellsJr first described it here: http://www.printerknowledge.com/thr...-canon-bci-3-5-6-cli-8-pgi-5-and-others.5994/ .

Here is a very simple yet effective filling device: http://www.printerknowledge.com/thr...li-8-pgi-5-and-others.5994/page-15#post-44616 .

I have described what I think are some very important precautions here: http://www.printerknowledge.com/thr...bci-3-5-6-cli-8-pgi-5-and-others.5994/page-19 .

and here: http://www.printerknowledge.com/thr...li-8-pgi-5-and-others.5994/page-15#post-44616 .

Yet more explanation here: http://www.printerknowledge.com/threads/freedom-fill-pump-vs-syringe-fill.8288/#post-78224

and here: http://www.printerknowledge.com/threads/flushing-why.9217/page-3#post-72878 ,
in case it didn't make sense the the other times.

Don't forget to make sure the sponge is firmly in contact with the exit port, and make sure there is no little bubble between the chambers. I have had verified incidents with both problems.

 

[websnail]

Has it been established yet what the Pro-100 print head has issues with?

Just to note that all this discussion about the magenta(s) has been news to me although we've had a pretty normal level (ie: minimal) of reports re: old ink stock, poorly stored, etc... for our "normal"* Canon (Image Specialist manufactured) inks.

Since that discovery there have been numerous reports of Magenta / Photo Magenta causing print head failures

Again, none here but from what I can see all of the discussion about the printhead failures are based around the Pro-100 inks which we do not source from Image Specialists as they don't have a inkset for the CLI-42.

In order to facilitate a solution we need good information...

Agreed so just to correct a couple of things for future reference.

B) Ink Manufacturer and/or etailer

..
2) Image Specialists refill inks (previously sold by Octoink and still currently sold by Precision Colors)

As noted above, we're still selling the "normal" Image Specialists inks for the Pixma IP, MP, MG, MX range. The notable omissions are:
- CLI-42 (Pro-100)
- PGI-550 / CLI-551 (and other sales zone equivalents)
- PGI-72 (when ready)

3) Prodinks GmbH (currently sold by Octoink)

ie:
- CLI-42 (Pro-100)
- PGI-550 / CLI-551 (and other sales zone equivalents)
- PGI-72 (when ready)

This could be a design flaw for which might be alleviated by an altered design and manufacturing run. Maybe this is why Canon has aggressively been dumping the Pro-100 on the US market - to get rid of flawed stock.

All for empirical research so I won't say there isn't one but if that were the case I would expect to see a huge number of posts about issues when used with OEM inks because of the expense outside of the USA and the lack of suitable compatibles. DPReview would almost certainly have had such reports by now given the higher ratio of users there that swear allegiance to OEM compared to say users on this forum.

Regardless, more information might lead to a solution for you and others.

Agreed... I may be opening the flood gates on this but, as yet, we have not had reports of issues with inks outside of the normal range and I suspect most of this is because we may not have received a poorly manufactured batch, we're not offering Image Specialists inks for Pro-100's and when issues have been reported they have quickly been resolved once a review of refilling procedure has been carried out.



@Grazer5: As you appear to have a reasonable setup to facilitate this, would you be interested in testing out the CLI-42 inks we have and gauging whether the clogging issue is more generic? If that'd be useful then drop me a PM (conversation?) and we can get that organised.


Oh and last point on the whole flushing debate, I wrote an article sometime back about using refill ink as a flushing solution but not in the sense of purging, but rather as a sort of "cartridge refresh" to encourage ink flow within the sponge, clear hardened deposits of ink and re-establish linkage between sponge and spongeless sections. With regard to the Pro-100 in particular the "Yellow Jello" scare appears to have discouraged what was originally pretty standard practice for resolving poor ink flow in cartridges so the blogged approach might be a way to rekindle that. Of course that assumes the ink being used isn't the problem but thought I'd pop it out as it has some relevance.

Cheers All...