Maybe my IP6600 gem still needs some polishing

[The Hat]

I did not see a second waste ink pad anywhere. Is there one to the right of that, far enough into the printer that I can't see it?

The same pic above is of a larger printer than your so your purge pads would be far smaller than those shown, these pads are ceramic and not foam, the waste ink pads are something completely different and both should not be confused.
Here is a thread showing the waste ink pads in the bottom of a printer..
https://www.printerknowledge.com/threads/anatomy-of-a-canon-waste-ink-tank-or-waste-ink-pads.4331/

OK. I'll let people know to personal message you in your Inbox.

Thanks @stratman...

 

[stratman]

Thanks @stratman...

My pleasure.

 

[Hogwild]

Wait...I'm confused. I cleaned the white foam thing. That is the waste ink pads? Where are the purge pads on an IP6600? Do I still need to clean them?

 

[stratman]

Wait...I'm confused. I cleaned the white foam thing. That is the waste ink pads? Where are the purge pads on an IP6600? Do I still need to clean them?

People use different terms for the same things. It is not recommended at this time you dismember your printer and clean the internal diaper pads / ink absorber pads / ink waste pads / whatever you want to call them pads.

Based on your posts, you have cleaned your purge pad (you said there was only one) and are done cleaning pads at this time. If you decide to go against advice about the ink absorber pads then make sure you take pictures of every step in the dismantling of your printer so you will have the proverbial breadcrumbs to get it reassembled properly.

 

[Hogwild]

Ok, well on the nozzle test, yellow is coming out as yellow, AFAICT. But on the spreasheet, yellow is still coming out green with banding/darker green stripes through it. What's my next step?

 

[stratman]

What's my next step?

Post the prints.

 

[Hogwild]

Of which? Nozzle? Spreadsheet? I'm using up a fair bit of ink here. Yellow is now @ about 45% full.

 

[PeterBJ]

...Based on your posts, you have cleaned your purge pad (you said there was only one) and are done cleaning pads at this time...

The iP6600/iP6700 printers are dedicated photo printers without pigment black, so the purge unit only has one section.

@Hogwild This single purge pad can be seen in this photo from the druckerchannel.de article about changing of ink absorbers on the iP6600D/6700D. The purge pad is a "postage stamp sized" black rectangular piece of a porous plastic or maybe ceramic material . After cleaning the purge pad it should be white or nearly so.:

The waste ink absorbers are much larger pieces of a felt like material at the bottom of the printer, see this.

 

[stratman]

Of which? Nozzle? Spreadsheet? I'm using up a fair bit of ink here. Yellow is now @ about 45% full.

Is the nozzle check normal? If so, why is your spreadsheet not as you expect?

Have you followed the recommendations of the members? If not, why? Maybe a review of this entire thread to determine what you might still try, but have not yet, to resolve the issues.

One thing that may not have been suggested is to try printing something that tests the colors once you are sure the nozzle check is within normal limits. For example, a test image and instructions on how to evaluate your print out found here.

For all we know you may have some customized printing settings, or using the wrong ICC profile for the printer, or poor performing paper for the ink used, or bad ink, or leaking internal or external to the print head, or your monitor is showing significantly different colors than it should and that is why the print out looks "off". Maybe there was corruption of the printer installation files - you could try completely uninstalling the files AND the printer, reboot and then reinstall. Maybe it is the spreadsheet application.

 

[Hogwild]

Peter:

EDIT:
Dang! Now this stupid thing will not feed 4x6" photo paper from the cassette. It keeps complaining there is no paper in the tray. I have about 20 sheets of Canon glossy photo paper in there. Suggestions? I've set it to 4x6" photo paper in the driver, and tried both "cassette"a and "tray switch" as driver setttings. I managed to print a couple of 4x6" photos earlier using this tray, but it was finicky. Now it won't print.




Okay, I guess my mistake was that I thought whatever I cleaned, after being bright white, would stay bright white. It's now dark again. So that's making things a bit confusing. I don't think that's what I cleaned. OTOH, I don't see anything in my printer which looks similar to what is indicated by the red arrow in the picture you linked. You're sure I should be able to see/access that without disassembly?
Cause I'm doubting it from what I see.


Stratman:

With respect, if I knew what do do next, I wouldn't be asking. Yes, there may be 10 possibilities, but I'd appreciate getting help in which order to try them. I just spent about 20 hours working on a laptop which had complex issues, so I'm a little tired of trying everything under the sun.

My print settings in the driver are exactly whatever the installation defaults are. I don't know how to use ICC profiles, so let's assume I haven't changed anything, cause I haven't gone near such settings. Wouldn't do that until I knew the printer was working properly in the first place.

I highly doubt the printer driver files are corrupted. I assembled this PC myself and it has near flawless stability. Chkdsk reports everything as being fine.