Striped colors from CLI-8 carts & IP4300

This isn't another 'missing yellow' thread. (And sorry for the long background story)

I upgraded to a IP4300 from a i560 2+ years ago and up to 3 weeks ago have had next to NO problem refilling the tanks, nor with the printhead.
Then I got the dreaded 5 flashing orange lights error denoting a bad print head. I had two (what I thought were 'new') spares. I know different now.
I replaced the dead print head with the 1st printhead, ran some 'purge' pages, then did a manual alignment. All was fine for the most part. A couple of those cyan lettered test points were not the best, but everything else was good.
For two days.
Then I started to get streaking with the same tanks (and ink) I had been using for two years. I flushed the printhead out under the sunk using filtered water (from a under sink water filter). reinstalled everything and all was good again for a few prints, but the problem returned.

Blaming this supposedly 'refurbished' printhead, I tried my 2nd spare. That seems ok, thou not as good as what my original head was for 2 years (I believe that came with this used printer).

I ordered two 'refurbished' heads from two different e-bay sellers. Unfortunately they used the same source which is ISSCX. Apparently 50 to 75% of the dozen or so sellers of this printhead (QY6-006) buy from the same company. And guess what? BOTH of the replacements wound up with issues.

Anyway, now in in panic mode, I really don't want to upgrade again after only two years of use and the fact I also bought a spare IP4300 (both a a decent price), especially since looking over the reviews of printers with carts from the next two generations of carts w/ chips, I'd rather stay with theses carts & printheads ( printer) if I can get some that are actually good. My previous printer was a i560 which I had 2 for around 10 years.

Attached are pics of the problem. AFAIK, this seems to be an electronic issue. You can see light then dark stripes in each color, especially yellow. Black seems ok. Again, same ink thou I did try a fresh set of 3rd party pre-filled tanks I never used yet.

The 1st pic is the previous & current condition, the 2nd pic was what that purge pattern looked like after I swapped the almost empty dye black tank with a full one and before I ran a couple of pages of that purge pattern.

Input please.

Please post a cropped nozzle check image.

Hold off on printing anything other than nozzle checks for now.

Your issue looks like contamination of the Yellow cartridge with Black ink - the Yellow gradually fades away to increasing Blackish color. There is also classic signs of irreparable electrical malfunction - straight line loss of ink that is also in a banding pattern - of either the print head, the logic assay board or both.

Do all of the print heads you've tried show the identical issue(s)? If so then your logic board is fried and may rarely cause an irreparable malfunction of a print head. If so, a new print head will not fix the issue. A new logic assay board and new print head are most likely the solution.

videobruce said:

I did try a fresh set of 3rd party pre-filled tanks I never used yet.

Click to expand...

Was this a 3rd party Yellow cartridge you refilled? Did the use of this cartridge change anything in your print outs - improvement or no improvement? Is there anything blocking the air vent on top of the cartridge? This would eventually prevent ink flow.

I'm curious about the details surrounding the second image with the disappearing Yellow ink. Which of your ink cartridges was this Yellow at the time of that print out? How long had it been since installed and since last time you used the printer? A cartridge that poorly feeds ink due to problems with the sponge, for instance, can rebound a bit after enough rest to allow ink to seep back into the circular sponge ot the ink exit port on the cartridge.

As to the 2nd attachment. The 'dye' black was running low. I swapped out the tanks (I have a spare set already filled and reset) and printed that test page.
Look closer, that isn't black, but it appears to be a combo of cyan making a green like color until the yellow flows fully. It was a one time thing.
It's that 2 tone horizontal stripes (or bars if you like) that I have to think it's a electronic issue in the head.

I have a replacement head on it's way. I'm hesitant to swap heads again, I have another one that is streaking (different issue IIRC) and one good one that I'm have in reserve. Sorry, it's kinda complicated, one head failure and two heads that print issues (one returned for refund).

There is rarely a day goes by that I don't print something.

Take at look at these, especially the 1st pic in the upper right (excuse the WB, it was off).

videobruce said:

Look closer, that isn't black, but it appears to be a combo of cyan making a green like color until the yellow flows fully.

Click to expand...

Maybe so, but, the darker horizontal bars in every color are even darker in image #2 when I can see a Black Vertical test swath. The bars are noticeable lighter shade when there is no Black vertical swath in the test image. Is this a case of correlation is not causation? How do you explain these findings?

videobruce said:

It's that 2 tone horizontal stripes (or bars if you like) that I have to think it's a electronic issue in the head.

Click to expand...

Yes. Or the logic assay board. Or both.

videobruce said:

Take at look at these, especially the 1st pic in the upper right

Click to expand...

Yes, this could represent an irreparable print head malfunction, irreparable logic assay board malfunction, or both.

Check for a dirty Timing Strip and clean if needed.

The first picture in post #4 clearly shows electronic defects in both yellow and photo black. The defects also show in the normal nozzle check print with Y and BK split horizontally in half and with one half too light. some cross contamination between Y and BK is also seen.

Canon print heads can do bidirectional printing so each colour has two nozzle sets. In the service test print regular magenta shows contamination with possibly cyan in one of the nozzle sets.

I don't quite understand your plans. If you have a known good print head in store then why don't you use that instead of buying dubious print heads from the web?

But replacing a Canon print head is always risky. A defective print head can but does not always damage the logic board. A logic board damaged in this way can damage a new print head.

Before I go any further, I would like to thank all of you for the input and help. Sorry if I was on the 'crusty' side, but I have encountered a '5 flashing orange' before with the 1st 4300 I bought 2+ years ago and it apparently took out the MB in that unit (which later got trashed).

But in the current situation, I'm not getting that error code (thank goodness) as that is my main concern. I didn't want to break out my spare 4300 unless I had to and it surely seem that I had to.

This quote is added to many ebay sellers listing regarding what you were talking about ;
http://www.isscx.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1_3&products_id=29

IT'S VERY VERY POSSIBLE THAT AFTER YOU INSTALL A PRINT HEAD, IT DOES NOT WORK, AND THE REASON IS POSSIBLE THAT YOUR PRINT MAIN-BOARD BURNS THE PRINT HEAD.IT'S VERY POSSIBLE, WE HAVE 10 YEARS EXPERIENCE IN PRINTER FIELDS, AND WE KNOW THIS OFTEN HAPPENS.

Click to expand...

Then you are saying a partial failure is possible to either the replacement head(s) and/or the MB(logic if you prefer) from the original (to me) printhead when it went defective that started all of this?

stratman said:

Check for a dirty Timing Strip and clean if needed.

Click to expand...

I looked at that strip, I forgot it was even there since it's hard to see at the angle one usually is at looking into the opening. The strip was clean, I saw no grease on it, but I cleaned it anyway.
I do not see any "thin black vertical lines" as the .pdf describes on that strip even with a flashlight sinning on it.

PeterBJ said:

I don't quite understand your plans. If you have a known good print head in store then why don't you use that instead of buying dubious print heads from the web?

Click to expand...

My initial plan was based on replacing one of my spare heads that turned out defective. I want to stay with this printer series and this model as long as I can since I have looked at a number of models made after this and most introduce disadvantage (but that is another subject).
I took these failures as 'refurbished' failures since Canon stopped making these over 5 years ago (according to older posts here) in spite of want some sellers claim some of these are "new" which I don't buy.

I haven't put the hopefully good printhead back in due to what already has been brought up.

Do you guys suggest me breaking out my spare 4300 and try these printheads in that?

The thin markings might not be visible to the naked eye. Here is a 600 dpi scan of the left hand end of a timing strip from a Canon Pixma iP4000. The vertical markings are clearly visible in the scan.