Canon iP4200 colours

[The Hat]

DJM Can you buy Windex in the UK? If not, is there a UK version? Thanks

The UK version is just plain glass cleaner Windolene, try Halfords or use W5 brand from Lidl..

 

[DJM]

Hello The Hat.
I have tried your procedure with soaking plus windolene and deep clean etc. From picture, you can see blue starting to come back, but I seem to have lost the other colours. Any thoughts?

Would it help to open the print head to try to see if there is an obvious blockage ( I am quite used to working with surface mount electronics )

David Miles

 

[The Hat]

pollock
(Compatible cartridges) are those that are not made by Canon/Epson,
but by a 3rd party manufacturer and are usually sold extremely cheap all over the web.

An (OEM) cartridge just means Original Equipment Manufacturer i.e. Canon/Epson cartridges,
the same type that was in your printer when it was new.

Yes OEM cartridges give the very best print quality, and then can be refilled repeatedly
with good quality inks to give the best results no question..

 

[The Hat]

DJM Would it help to open the print head to try to see if there is an obvious blockage ( I am quite used to working with surface mount electronics )

Under no circumstance should you open your print head as there is nothing to see inside at all.
Its like Pandoras Box, do I or dont I, theres nothing to gain but everything to lose The print Head

Attempts at opening it tend to lead to a high chance of killing it, so if you want to risk it.
Youll need to take out the colour cartridges and put a couple of drops of Windex on the ink inlets,
after a minute or so do the same again then put your cartridges back in and do another head clean followed up with by a nozzle check.

Improvement will come gradual so squirt some Windex on the two pads of you purge unit and do a deep head clean
follow with the nozzle check and things should begin to look better;
it helps to leave your printer stand for an hour or so and then do a nozzle check.

Blockages are slow to shift and no two are the same so just take it nice and easy it should improve over 24 hours
but it could take a half dozen head cleans, nozzle checks to get back to normal printing again..

 

[DJM]

My Hat.
I have tried all of things that you suggested, but the large black cartridge and a bit of blue are the only ones that seem to work when I print a test. I then tried the idea of the paper towel soaked in windex . The three colours were showing inside the print head before I started using the reverse ink push idea. The two blacks looked clean. When I pushed the print head down on the soaked paper towel, ink came up through each gauze inlet, except the small black gauze inlet only showed a tiny amount of black ink coming through. Do you think this means that the small black ink pathway is the only one blocked? Any ideas.

David Miles

 

[l_d_allan]

DJM ... something to consider.

It may be possible to "give up too soon" when a nozzle check shows no improvement after a cleaning attempt. If you've put in some kind of cleaning solution, there may be a "pipeline" within the print-head itself. Then cleaning solution is being sprayed, but it could look like the print-head is still clogged.

I'm unaware of what the fluid volume is from the nozzle inlet to the actual bottom of the print-head where the heating elements are causing the ink to "bubble" and spray. Probably not much, but I would speculate more than what is used for a nozzle check.

My practice after having a cleaning cart in use ... or soaking the print-head ... is to put the cart with real ink back in, try a nozzle check, and then a print-driver regular cleaning cycle. Then another nozzle check. Depending on the printer model, there may be some redundant head purging and cleaning cycles. Once you've had the top cover opened up to swap in carts back and forth, most printers probably schedule a cleaning/purging before the nozzle check is done.

ghwellsjr recommends having some greatly diluted ink in the cleaning cart, if you use those. That way you can better tell if the nozzle check is ok. Otherwise, you can have the situation of using "invisible ink" and inferring the clog still exists when it may in fact be better.

 

[The Hat]

DJM
If you leave your printer to sit between head clean /nozzle checks for several hours
you may well find that the ink tend to return slowly.

As you are using the compatible cartridges you could try putting a couple of drops of Windex on each
of the inlets of your cartridges, again leave it for a while and just try the nozzle check and see if theres any improvement.
It should return to printing a full normal nozzle, it just takes time..