I caved .... and bought another used iP4500 printer off eBay! At least now, if I choose to tear into my old printer, I won't be without a printer in the process. Plus, I have another paper tray which I can fill with a different size photo paper.
After 15 minutes, the larger pad looks to no longer be completely flooded (I can once again see the rough surface of the pad) .... but the smaller "skinny" one (for the PGBK print head?) looks pretty much like it did when I first flooded it (rough surface of that pad is not visible).
Is my next...
I left the cover open in an earlier "test" ... but it eventually returned to the "rest" position ... like maybe after 5 minutes. I noticed that the "power" button is flashing green, so I'm guessing it's still "thinking" ... and will eventually return as it did previously!
I'll try unplugging...
Turns out that turning the printer off causes the print head to return to the "rest" position, covering the purge pads. Is there a way to keep the heads from returning to the purge pads while I'm waiting to see if the water disappears?
Stratman:
I uninstalled everything under "Canon" in my Control Panel - Add/Remove Programs ... then re-booted ... then went through the entire re-install of the Setup CD, including the print head alignment. The two pages that the head alignment printed look "normal" ... with black and blue...
OK ... I installed a brand new PGBK cartridge ... genuine Canon, not refilled ... absolutely no difference ... no printing from PGBK cartridge at all!
Flooded the purge pads again ... waited a couple minutes ... doesn't appear as though they're draining out, at least not completely "dry" like...
I'm thinking that losing the ability to view ink levels probably disappeared BEFORE I lost the ability to print black from the PGBK cartridge. The reason I say that is because I used to get a pop-up saying the printer was preparing to print a document using the iP4500 printer before the printer...
I started with #3 ... flooded the purge pads with water, then executed a cleaning cycle. Nozzle check printout still completely missing the top line where the PGBK cartridge is supposed to print. Checked the purge pads and the water is gone, so I assume the purge unit is functioning correctly...
Either I'm not following your directions correctly, or your procedure doesn't work for me. When I go to Uploads, I see a "Thumb:" and an "Image:" box which contain "url" and "img" data for my "Recent Upload" ... but when I copy either of the links, and paste it into my reply, and then try to...
I'm a first time poster, so please excuse any "rookie" statements.
My Pixma iP4500 printer stopped printing from the PGBK cartridge this morning, when I tried to print a simple 3-page Word document ... and nothing but blank paper came out of the printer! I deduced that by changing the paper...