Canon i550 printing very strange

[Trigger 37]

Well I thought I had experienced just about everything with the many Canon printers that I have been fixing lately,... but this one almost has me stumped.

I just got this printer today and it was used. I printed the nozzle test pattern and at first all colors were OK except there was no yellow. I check the Carts and put in good ones out of another printer but that made no difference. I assumed the yellow was clogged. I cleaned the printhead in the standard manner and retested it. The yellow worked great on the first nozzle test but the cyan was like hen's teeth. I did several deep cleanings and everything kept getting worse. The more I cleaned the worse it got,.. and finally there was no color at all but the black was just fine. I am now under the assumption that the purge unit is not working as when I do a cleaning, nothing gets better. The printer will continue to print anything in black, but no color, as I printed a copy of the EEprom data and the service test pattern. The printhead temperature readings in the eeprom data were all nominal.

I've done my usual quick test of the purge unit by injecting some Windex into the printhead Caps and doing a couple of power on/off cycles. The Purge unit seemed to drain the Windex. My next step is to take the unit apart and inspect the purge unit and the waste ink pads to see if ink is really coming out of the Purge unit when it does a cycle. I have about 7-8 test prints that show that at one point, every nozzle was printing fine a one point. It continues to look like it is being "Starved" of ink. These symptoms imply that the printhead is not getting primed with ink so I did another test. I removed all of the color ink carts and added Windex into the cavity of each ink tank where the filter screens are located. I filled these but did not overflow them and then ran a print head alignment to get as many patterns printed as possible. All of the alignment patterns that contained black printed OK, and I got some of the Magenta patterns to print but they fadded out before the end of the print. This demonstrated to me if there is liquid getting to the nozzles via the filter screens, the nozzles will print.

I've also cleaned the gold contacts on the back of the printhead and tested the spring loaded gold pins on the carriage. Everything there seems OK.

I can easily take the old ink carts out of this printer and put them in another printer and test them there for ink flow. They were all Canon carts and had never been refilled.

There are many very clever people that contribute information to this web site and we keep learning new things about Canon (and other) printers everyday. This printer, while it is a mystery right now, will teach us a lot about printheads, ink carts, purge units, and the same problems that 100's of people are having with their printers. If we can solve this problem, it will help many other people. Once the solution is at hand, it can be added to the "Frequently Asked Question" sticky for everyone to read.

 

[ghwellsjr]

These symptoms imply that the printhead is not getting primed with ink so I did another test. I removed all of the color ink carts and added Windex into the cavity of each ink tank where the filter screens are located. I filled these but did not overflow them and then ran a print head alignment to get as many patterns printed as possible. All of the alignment patterns that contained black printed OK, and I got some of the Magenta patterns to print but they fadded out before the end of the print. This demonstrated to me if there is liquid getting to the nozzles via the filter screens, the nozzles will print.

Don't the results of these tests indicate a priming problem? I don't think that Windex being dropped onto the filter screens invalidates your earlier tests that indicated that the printhead was not getting primed. What if you dropped ink instead of Windex in the same places?

 

[Trigger 37]

Ghwellsjr, You are correct. I didn't mean to imply that it "Wasn't" a priming problem,.. I wanted to show that if some ink could get into the nozzles that they would print,...which shows it "IS" a priming problem.

In looking again at the nozzle test print this morning, it is clear that absolutely no COLOR ink is coming out,.. only black ink. The only thing common for all 3 colors is the Purge unit. It has a valve inside that is switched from black to color and that is why the maintenance panel allows you to select either black, color, or both. So I used some more windex and rinsed the color CAP several times until I got it back to almost white color. Then I ran another Deep Cleaning cycle for colors and opened the cover to see the Caps. The first time there was no color at all so I ran the deep cleaning one more time. This time the only color was a little bit of Cyan, so I printed another nozzle test and the black was great and there was just a 1/4" of Cyan. So it is clear that not sufficient ink is getting sucked through the printhead to prime it.

Now it is time to take the unit apart and see what the problem is with the color section. It could be clogged or full of dried ink. As much trouble as this testing is giving me, at least I'm learning something.

 

[ghwellsjr]

You've got more ambition than I do. I would just keep pouring on the Windex and running deep cleaning cycles on the color part of the head. It looks like it's starting to work and you've got nothing to lose. You aren't wasting ink, at least not much ink. And you're not filling your waste ink tank by repeated cleaning cycles with Windex on the pad. I would even make some cleaning cartridges filled with Windex so you won't be wasting any ink.

 

[hpnetserver]

"The yellow worked great on the first nozzle test but the cyan was like hen's teeth."

This looks like something familiar to me. Your Yellow printed nothing but Cyan was perfect. Then suddenly Yellow was perfect but Cyan went haywire. How about this one. Is any cartridge leaking? I am talking about very slow leak. It's not pouring nor dripping but enough to flow on the print head surface? This one usually is easily overlooked. But it can block off a large group of nozzles and it moves when print head moves. I have seen it and cleaning cycles won't fix it, as ink will continue to leak out. Let the printer idle for a minute then remove the print head to see if there is any amount of ink you can find on the surface of it. If you see a tiny drop of ink there, that's it. It is enough to cause a lot of nozzles blocked from outside of the nozzles. Maybe this is the problem of your printer.

 

[Akwek]

:| Hmmm, it seems that "first nozzle check" is working good, but it'll getting worse on the second, third and so on. What is the result, if you leave the printer about 2 hours turned off and then do a nozzle check again? If the same problem comes again, you maybe need to buy a new print head. I remember having a similar problem with another model of Canon that used think tank ink cartridges (i6100, ip3000). I don't know what exactly caused the print head behavior like that, maybe there is something "weak" in the print head circuit itself, not the nozzle. Hope my experience may helpful.

 

[efinigan]

My i550 has a very similar problem.

No colors at all, even with full cartridges. Black couldn't be better.

Wonder if I should resort to to the Windex treatment of the caps?

I've searched these forums, and found several conflicting procedures for use Power and Resume buttons to run troubleshooting TAP tests. Please point me to correct procedure.

I would try to remove the case to inspect the ink waste it I could only locate the "three screws".

ADDED: Neither the Print Head Alignment nor the Nozzle Check show patterns under B, C or E.

And I do not get any flashing errors when printing documents (everything comes out Black).

From the Service mode, I've been able to print the Service Test Print and the EEPROM Information Print, but I have no idea of what the numbers and paterns mean?? Should I invest in an i550 Service Manual?

 

[jflan]

I would even make some cleaning cartridges filled with Windex so you won't be wasting any ink.

I have done this and it works very well.
I use Art's formula of 1 part Isopropyl Alcohol (90+%) and 2 parts Windex Original w/AmmoniaD

Then use a prime page so that you can focus your efforts on one color at a time.
Make one up using Paint (or similar) or use this one :
http://www.ink-refills-ink.com/InfoPages/1primepage.htm

I like to avoid Deep Cleaning with ink and use the above method instead.

For those that don't wish to refill, G&G offers cleaning cartridges for many popular printer models.

 

[Trigger 37]

Thanks for all the new posts. I have been too busy with many other items. I broke a tooth and spent the morning being told how much a new crown will cost. Then I spent the afternoon getting the boat cleaned up so it can get into the lake tomorrow. I know it's a tough life but someone has to do it. Several boats are going to meet in the center of the lake and we are going to have the battle of the pirate ships, only we have to use Water Canons..... ARRRGGhhh.

Hopefully I'll get back to my printer problems sometime this weekend,.. but OH, I forgot about the golf tournament on saturday. Geeezzee,... Can't I get some time off. It's a bitch being retired,... there are not enough hours in a day.

Well maybe I can get back to it on Monday.

 

[ghwellsjr]

...we have to use Water Canons.....

Uhh--I think that would be Water Cannons--you've obviously been spending too much time around your printers. You need a break.