Alignment error on Canon i9900

[TecHomer]

Hello every one, new to the forum.

I have owned a canon i9900 for almost two years now. I got it mostly to do large size prints of my artwork, but recently I haven't used it that much except for regular document printing.

Then I decided to print a large picture of a new piece I made.

Everything seemed to be working fine until I got the print and noticed that there was something wrong with it.

here is a link to what the printing result looks like:

As you can see, the dark part of the pictures seems to have stopped in a very peculiar way.

I thought perhaps the printer needed cleaning or alignment.

I did cleaning first both simple and deep cleaning and the problem continued.

Then I did simple alignment and the printer gave me a "simple head alignment failure" error message after the first color chart was done and the second "automatic" started. The message sugested I push the "resume/cancel" button to reset the and to then try again.

Once that failed it said to try to do manual print alignment. It was then, when it printed the color alignment chart that I noticed this:

as you can see column "F" and "I" are completely missing.

I don't know if any one has had a similar problem with this printer. My guess is that the print head may be dying, but I never really had a similar problem before so I really can't tell if it may be that or something else. Ink tanks have ink in all of them (from completely full to half full) and the nozzle check pattern always comes up perfect.

So does any one here have any idea of what may be wrong?

Thanks in advance.

 

[ltsang]

I do not have the i9900, but from your printouts looks like your yellow print nozzle is plugged. I fix my Canon
print nozzle by taking the print head out and spray a stream of warm water on the nozzle screen, watch some
yellow ink come out from the bottom of the print head, wipe the print head dry carefully and try to print a nozzle
check. Just fill the needle you used to do refills and fill it with water to do the spray. Hope it works for you.

 

[Grandad35]

TecHomer,

I have an i9900, but I have never seen a head alignment print like the one that you posted.

I converted your image to CMYK, then split it into its individual color channels, as shown below (click on the thumb to see the full image). The Magenta and Yellow both look somewhat normal, but the Cyan and Black both appear to be missing color on the right. The strangest thing is that the left side of the image has normal color while the right side does not. I don't know of any way for a clog or ink feed problem to disappear and reappear at the same point on every pass of the print head. Specifically, note that the color on the Cyan channel has a very sharp starting point - clogs don't look like this. Even if the image is rotated 90 degrees (if the left side was actually printed at the top of the document), the starting point looks to be too sharp to be a clog.

Does every image show this problem, or only this one? How wide is the scan that you posted, in inches (or mm)? It's possible that the problem is caused by your printing software or even a dirty encoder band (the clear plastic strip that passes through the carriage to tell the printer the position of the print head).

 

[TecHomer]

Thank you guys!

Ok that is the scan of when I first noticed the problem.

It's not that big, the actual picture is about 14.5X12 and the picture I posted is of an area of around 4.5X4.5

I also found it odd that the ink flow would just cut off in such a way. The other print I made next after the cleaning and alignment attempts don't look like that though, they have the color (black and magenta??) completely missing and only little bits of it showed up.

here is what it looks like:

How do I remove the print head to check for clogging?... Since some if not all the ink tanks are somewhat full and are in there, I don't want to some how make the problem worse by pulling it out while it's loaded.

 

[Grandad35]

This print is completely different from the first print. Again, the image was broken into its individual channels - it appears that the Cyan isn't printing but that the PC is.


Pulling the print head is easy to do by removing all 8 carts, lifting the gray lever just to the right of the yellow cart, gently tilting the print head toward you and then lifting it out. Before doing this, I would double check the nozzle check printout. If it appears to be normal, it isn't likely that your problem is caused by a clog. The nozzle check is very light, but you can over print several nozzle checks on the same piece of paper to make them darker so that you can post what it looks like. Be sure to blot the dark black bars after each nozzle check, as they get a lot of ink and multiple overprints can cause ink smears in these areas.

Have you double checked that you have the correct carts in each position - it is easy to insert the wrong cart.

 

[TecHomer]

hello there!

Ok, I did check the nozzle check printout and under column 2 row 6C I get nothing, column 1 row 6PC is there though barely visible:

 

[pharmacist]

Techomer, your 6PC printout is OK, I have the same intensity, but the 6C is not OK. Your cyan nozzles are completely clogged, but the 6BK looked a little bit odd, it's more blueish than grey/black. Try to use a cleaning cart for the cyan position and run one or more cleaning cycles to unclog your cyan.

 

[Grandad35]

The PM and PC are much lighter than the other colors, but that is normal (they are actually just diluted Magenta and Cyan inks). However, your Cyan is completely missing, as I suspected from your last image. This is more likely to be a problem with your Cyan cart than a clogged print head, although it is possible that there is an electrical problem with the cables feeding the signals to the print head or in the print head itself.
1. Is the Cyan cart still snapped down tightly in place?
2. Pull the Cyan cart. Look at the ink pickup where it contacts the filter on the cart's exit - is there a small puddle of ink on top, or is it dry? If it is dry, ink was not getting to the print head.
3. Hold the cart over a paper towel, and GENTLY blow into the vent on the top front of the cart, making sure that the seal over the vent hole has been removed. It should only take a light pressure to cause the cart to drip from the exit port. After it starts to drip, put it back into the printer.
4. As a comparison, you may want to pull another cart and see how much pressure is required to make it drip. If the cyan cart takes a lot more pressure to cause the ink to drip, you may have a clogged filter in that cart.
5. Run the standard cleaning cycle and rerun the nozzle check. If it now prints OK but the same problem returns in a day or two, suspect a defective cart. Whose carts do you use, or do you refill?

 

[TecHomer]

Ok, the ink tank for the cyan seems to be ok, ink flows and goes into the paper as described. I'm thinking the print head may indeed be clogged, I will now try to check the print head.

 

[TecHomer]

err... is there a trick to pulling the print head out? I took out the ink tanks and lifted the grey bar on the side, but I can't get the print head out...

oh wait... there it goes... mhh.. now what am I looking for? I've never had to deal with this kind of thing before, so I don't know how I should proceed...

As far as ink, I always use new canon ink, never refills.