Trigger 37
Printer Guru
- Joined
- Dec 23, 2006
- Messages
- 607
- Reaction score
- 4
- Points
- 136
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.
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.