Can print head recover from letting magenta run completely dry?

We do have a water softener, but I am still a little mistrustful about our water quality because I don't know how often my husband refills it and sometimes my family complains about the water when they visit. So I will try with the distilled water.

The ammonia solution was suggested by prior research. Lesson learned.

I have read flushing procedures elsewhere, but perhaps I should ask if you have a preferred method? I did purchase flushing cartridge holders from octoinkjet, and they have videos on how to flush either with water or with ink.

Thank you for your input!

i get same trouble now, and i will try to.. thankyou so much sir

Nancy R said:

I have read flushing procedures elsewhere, but perhaps I should ask if you have a preferred method?

Click to expand...

I have used a variation on this method. While easy, effective and fast, the darn tubing has a habit of popping off which makes it messier. I also detail purging of cartridges here. Please note the section about promoting drying of the sponge:

An ingenious method of promoting drying of the sponge after purging was devised by ghwellsjr using ordinary kitchen paper towels. See his post (#3) at http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=5290. This will drastically cut down drying time. FYI - You can refill if there is a LITTLE moisture left in the sponge - you don't have to wait until the sponge is bone dry.

Click to expand...

There are many ways people have flushed cartridges. Here are a couple of other links with various methods:

https://www.printerknowledge.com/threads/how-i-flush-my-521-520-cartridges-video.8452/

https://www.printerknowledge.com/threads/dont-forget-or-ignore-cartridge-flushing.2639/

Note: In the last link is a post by me that details the equipment I used.

Nancy R said:

I did purchase flushing cartridge holders from octoinkjet, and they have videos on how to flush either with water or with ink.

Click to expand...

I am unfamiliar with these products. I saw the description for them but no pictures or videos. Can you link to the pictures/videos?

Thank you for the links. I will review them carefully before proceeding.

The products I have are the cartridge flush clips. I am sorry I was imprecise with my language before, making the information hard to find. The picture and video on how to use them is on this page.
http://www.octoink.co.uk/products/Cartridge-Flush-Clip-Set-[Canon].html

Nancy R said:

The products I have are the cartridge flush clips.

Click to expand...

This system may have been invented by forum member Mikling, who also happens to have his own refilling business in Canada. Mikling appears to have gotten the idea from another forum member Grandad35. I was going to post the link to Mikling's method but thought it too fussy to make the cartridge clip connection, especially when there are other methods that require less work to make the part needed.

The link to Mikling's modified cartridge clips post: https://www.printerknowledge.com/threads/mikling-canon-bci-cli-pgi-flush-system.1651/
Now would be a good time for our friend @websnail to give props to Grandad35 and Mikling.

stratman said:

These cartridges were printing OK before the print head soak, right? If so, then what has caused the change?

• An air bubble in the channels in the print head that ink is unable to push out. This can be resolved but you must not print anything other than nozzle checks until resolved or nozzles will burn out. You have done regular and deep cleaning cycles. There was also a maintenance purge when you reinserted the print head with the cartridges which is supposed to re-establish a patent channels of ink. This did not happen. Maybe letting the printer rest over night will help.
• Anything that impedes the flow of air into the cartridge to equilibrate pressures inside the cartridge as ink flows out of the cartridge will cause lack of ink flow. Ink inside the air maze or something sealing the air vent on top of the cartridge will cause this issue. The solution is to re-establish the air vent-maze patency. If ink is in the air maze then you can blow into the air vent to push the ink out. Do this over the sink or outside because ink will drip out of the cartridge!
  
• Malfunction of the purge system. When the printer is not in use the print head parks itself to one side, usually to the right as you look at the front of the printer. Underneath the print head are two purge pads that correspond to the shape and size of the nozzles underneath the print head. If one of the purge pads or the vacuum tubing gets clotted with old ink or some other malfunction of the system then ink flow from the cartridge will become poor. This would take longer than the time spent soaking a print head.

Click to expand...

Does the Pixma Pro-100 have a vacuum line? I haven't found a service manual or tear down to see what it has. It appears different inks behave differently to ammonia, so I was under the impression that when ammonia loosened everything up that the inks that thinned out more ended up gravity flushing out the bottom, causing air to fill in the top and at this point cause an air dam. Was the entire head submerged or just the bottom?

John R said:

Does the Pixma Pro-100 have a vacuum line?

Click to expand...

The purge unit is a vacuum pump that is involved in purging ink from cartridges. The purge pads are directly under the nozzles when the print head parks when not printing. Ink that has been purged from the cartridges flows through the purge pads and travels, via peristalsis in the tubing of the purge system, to the ink waste pads.


Edit:

John R said:

I haven't found a service manual or tear down

Click to expand...

No one has seen it. We're not sure it exists. It is a unicorn until proven otherwise.

John R said:

Does the Pixma Pro-100 have a vacuum line? I haven't found a service manual or tear down to see what it has. It appears different inks behave differently to ammonia, so I was under the impression that when ammonia loosened everything up that the inks that thinned out more ended up gravity flushing out the bottom, causing air to fill in the top and at this point cause an air dam. Was the entire head submerged or just the bottom?

Click to expand...

I just let the print head sit in about 1/4 inch of fluid. I periodically filled the ink inlet area with fluid that I siphoned from a straw, but the ink inlets were not consistently submerged.

Hello, I'm sorry it took me so long to go through the next steps. I did soak the print head again, this time just in dish detergent solution and then rinsed with distilled water letting it dry for at least 24 hours. Then I changed to my back up cartridges while I flushed the original cartridges and refilled, then switched back to the first set while I flushed/refilled my back up set of cartridges. Finally, I switched to new OEM cartridges. After each change of cartridges, I sometimes let the printer sit overnight, ran one or two regular cleaning cycles, and possibly a deep cleaning cycle (but never more than once per 24 hours). After each step (printer soak, cartridge change, overnight rest, cleaning cycle), I ran nozzle checks.

Overall, there were improvements after the flushed and refilled/new OEM cartridge substitutions in almost all the bands, except for the cyan band, which has remained fairly consistent. (Compare nozzle check 5, done after the initial print head soak and nozzle check 21, done after all the steps above.) I haven't waited overnight yet with the new cartridges, but I'm not optimistic.

At this point, should I assume that the best bet is to replace the printer head?