Canon MP640 not printing, even using in-printer maintenance functions

[britechguy]

Hello,

This is my first post to the Inkjet Printer Forum, but I've been a tech geek for years and every printer but one that I've owned has been a Canon Inkjet of one sort or another.

A bit of background on this specific printer. It had belonged to a friend and worked perfectly until it threw the dreaded B200 error code. This almost always indicates a bad print head, so I decided that I would purchase a new Canon OEM QY6-0072-00 print head.

The print head is now installed and the printer recognizes it. The B200 code has been banished. It went through the automatic print head cleaning for a newly installed print head without issue. However, it now prints nothing, absolutely nothing when using the maintenance menu on the printer itself. I can't get a nozzle check pattern, print head alignment pattern, etc.

I removed the print head to be certain that it was drawing all inks through to the nozzles, and if you gently touch the print head nozzles to a tissue or napkin all show color bleeding into the paper, so it doesn't appear to be an issue with the print head drawing ink. It's almost as though the paper is not being positioned close enough to the print head to effect a transfer. I have tried plain paper for nozzle checks and the specified matte photo paper for the automatic print head alignment. Both come out the front as white as they went in, whether being pulled from the cassette or the rear tray. I've also done a cleaning of the feed roller on the rear tray and the bottom plate cleaning from the maintenance menu.

Has anyone experienced this before and, if you have, is there a known solution to the problem? I hate tossing what should be a perfectly good printer (and perfectly good money for the print head, which is non-returnable). At the same time, I don't want to dedicate a lot more blood, sweat, tears, and frustration to "reviving this printer from the dead" if it's virtually certain that one cannot succeed.

I appreciate any insights that the cohort can offer.

Brian

 

[The Hat]

Hi Brian
I find your post very interesting because one of my printers just threw a B200 error also.
Im at sixes and sevens as to whether or not I should dump the printer or chance getting a new print head for it.

This type of error is extremely vague to say the least the B200 code could mean (Anything) from what I can gather,
like your cat is stuck inside the printer, or your print head is defective, and also your logic board, one or the other maybe both,
but you dont know till you spend your money then it can be too late.

You have done just about everything there is and possibly more but to no avail,
I can only suggest that at this stage its now lightly to be the logic board that went dodgy and not print head..

 

[britechguy]

Thank you very much for taking the time to respond.

It really is frustrating when a given fault code is not distinctive to *one* specific fault. I've given up on the printer ever working, although the scanner performs flawlessly. It's a shame, because this is a very nice machine.

At this point the two print heads I've bought (one originally refurbished, the second, brand new) are both up on eBay for auction. I hope I can recover part of what I spent and also hope that my loss might be someone else's gain. It really infuriates me that it's become much cheaper to buy entirely new printers rather than fix what are, when they're working, top-notch high-end units.

Brian