Canon G3200, Red Streaks in Photo Mode

MelB

Newbie to Printing
Joined
Jul 3, 2021
Messages
2
Reaction score
0
Points
8
Printer Model
Canon G3200
I'm having a printing problem I'm hoping someone can advise me on. I have a Canon G3200 Megatank Printer, and I'm printing from Photoshop on Windows 10 over USB connection. Black prints fine in Document Grayscale mode, using the black printhead. And when I print in Photo mode, printing a full page (8.5" x 11") of either cyan, magenta or yellow all print perfectly. But when I print of full page size photo of anything dark in Photo mode, where the printhead has to mix darks, it starts out printing fine until about halfway across the page, then it starts printing red streaks. When this starts to happen, I can hear the printing rhythm starting to change speed, as if it gets tired. I haven't tried flushing the printhead with alcohol solution because, as I mentioned, the colors each print flawlessly on their own. I don't know the mechanics of printing, or how much more difficult it is for a printer to use more than one color at a time, but that seems to be where the problem starts. Here's a photo of one the print outs (the image if from a wallpaper website). I'm using dye ink in the color tanks, which is what Canon color ink is, however it's not Canon ink, it's Printer Jack Compatible. I'm mentioning that in case non-OEM ink could cause this sort of problem. Thanks for your help in advance!

Printing_Problem.JPG
 
Last edited:

stratman

Printer VIP
Platinum Printer Member
Joined
Apr 19, 2007
Messages
8,712
Reaction score
7,163
Points
393
Location
USA
Printer Model
Canon MB5120, Pencil
Welcome to the forum, MelB.

Sacrebleu! Where did the CYAN go?

Printer Jack Compatible
Is this a Sublimation ink? Canon's are not compatible with sublimation inks.

in case non-OEM ink could cause this sort of problem.
OEM inks are the least problematic inks.

Please post a link to the ink you are using.

Please print a nozzle check, scan, crop and post.

Has the printer worked properly with these inks? If so, anything you can think of that you used or did differently around the time of the problem occurring?

What paper do you use and is it a different paper than what has worked in the past? Link please so we can see the specs.


What have you tried to resolve this issue? Anything make it better or made it worse? Have you tried a different image or application to print images?

Is there air in the ink lines from the ink tanks to the print head?
 
Last edited:

The Hat

Printer VIP
Platinum Printer Member
Joined
Jan 18, 2010
Messages
15,618
Reaction score
8,691
Points
453
Location
Residing in Wicklow Ireland
Printer Model
Canon/3D, CR-10, CR-10S, KP-3
I'm having a printing problem I'm hoping someone can advise me on. I have a Canon G3200 Megatank Printer,
The first thing I’d say STOP printing altogether, because that ink is not supposed to be used in your printer and any continued printing will damage the print head, if it has not done so already.

You’ll need to first drain out all the ink and then flush the remaining ink with new Canon G3200 ink and only then print a nozzle check. Patience is you friend here so don’t get on its wrong side..
 

MelB

Newbie to Printing
Joined
Jul 3, 2021
Messages
2
Reaction score
0
Points
8
Printer Model
Canon G3200
Thank you both for your replies. I did print a nozzle check pattern yesterday, and it looked perfect. I'll scan it and post it. (UPDATE: Nozzle check scan at end of this post.)

In the meantime, could either of you please comment about whether problems with the ink quality or print head itself would cause the motor of the printer to become irregular and slow down as if it's getting weak? Or would that more likely be the motor wearing out? As I said, it prints very well at the start of any large photo (8.5" x 11"), and only starts having trouble halfway through the photo, and at that point, I can hear the rhythm of the printing slow down.

Here are the answers to your questions, stratman:
Where did the cyan go?
It's a funny thing, but each color alone can print a solid page of individual color (cyan, magenta or yellow) flawlessly. The red streaks only happens when it has to mix a lot of color for a larger photo.

Is this a Sublimation ink?
No, it's dye ink, the same as Canon color inks. (The Printers Jack Black Ink is also dye, so I'm not using the black, I'm using Canon Pigment Ink for the black tank. At first I didn't know, and I filled the black tank with the dye in, and had troubles so I syphoned it back out what I could with a syringe and filled it with Canon black ink, which is what is in there now. I'm mentioning this parenthetically because it's a different issue from the problem with the cyan.) Here is the link to the ink.
Link to Printers Jack Ink on Amazon

Has the printer worked properly with these inks? If so, anything you can think of that you used or did differently around the time of the problem occurring?
Yes, it has been working, but I can't say for sure for how long, because when I print photos, I print a lot of them at once, then I don't print again for a weeks or even months, so although this is the first I've had this problem, I don't remember for sure how much of what I've done before was with the non-OEM ink. Though I'm leaning toward thinking the problem might be related to using these inks.

What paper do you use and is it a different paper than what has worked in the past?
I'm using Kirkland, which is what I always use. It has always worked great in the past, but most of that time was with Canon ink. Here's the link to the product page on Costco
Link to Kirkland Photo Paper

What have you tried to resolve this issue? Anything make it better or made it worse? Have you tried a different image or application to print images?

Is there air in the ink lines from the ink tanks to the print head?
I haven't tried anything yet. I flushed the black printhead with alcohol solution and a syringe, but I didn't flush the color printhead because, as I mentioned, full pages of each individual color print perfectly, so I didn't think that was the problem. As far as air in the lines, I just looked in while the printer is off and not printing, I do see air spaces in the lines. Is that normal? I don't know if the air is there when it's printing.

The Hat, thank you for your advice. I tend to agree, probably not a good idea to print with this ink. Could you please tell me if a bad printhead will cause the motor to slow down halfway through the page? That seems like a big clue to me about whether the problem is with the ink, printhead or just the motor wearing down in general. When you say that ink isn't supposed to be in my printer, do you mean that non-OEM ink should never be used?

Thank you both again!

UPDATE: The original nozzle check had already gone out with recyclables, so I went ahead and printed another. I'm glad I did, because it had a couple surprises in it for me. One is the black, which I was working great yesterday after I flushed the lines and put in the correct ink, but today it's back to having blank patches. However, I think I understand that problem, which is just that there's still some of the old non-OEM ink left to flush through, as I couldn't get it all out before refilling with Canon ink. The problem I'm more concerned with now is the one with the photo printing. I do see a problem in the cyan this time. I'm leaning toward completely tipping the printer upside down to empty each tank completely and refilling with Canon ink, which I have in my shopping cart on the Canon Store website, but I'm looking forward to hearing from you two about whether the mechanical slowing of the motor could be a sign of using the wrong ink or if it most likely indicates a problem that won't be resolved with the correct ink. Can the wrong ink do that?

Thank you both for your help!

nozzle_check.jpg
 
Last edited:

Latest posts

Top