Canon Pixma MP780 colors running blue (pictures)

[j0dan]

My colors have started to run blue.

After doing several deep clean cycles, everything looks fine, but after 10 minutes or so, it's back to being blue.
I've soaked the print head in isopropyl alcohol for about 5 minutes and plenty of blue came out. Also dabbed a bit of alcohol where the ink goes in the top. Same results afterwards.

Here's what it looks like. Top is after a clean cycle. Bottom is approximately 10 minutes later. After a while, the magenta will be a dark gray.

What could be wrong?

I've been doing a lot of deep clean cycles, so I'm also wondering how I can tell when the purge tray fills up or what to watch out for. How hard is it to clean?

 

[ghwellsjr]

Instead of taking a photograph of your nozzle check, could you please do a scan of them. Also, you will get a much better rendition of the nozzle check if you do it on photo paper.

You can find out how full your waste ink tank (purge tray, as you call it) is by following these instructions. Just bypass step 6. You don't want to reset it unless you actually replace the waste ink pads.

Here are instructions on how to replace the waste ink pads.

If you want to see what the pads look like, see this post.

 

[qwertydude]

What brand of ink are you using and what refill method are you using? If you're top filling, contamination like that could be caused by an air leak in the reservoir if german refilling you may be overfilling or oversaturating the sponge area. Those are tough pictures to judge by because it was taken in incandescent light and is underexposed, a proper scan will make it easier to see the condition but right now it looks as if cyan is bleeding over into magenta. Check your cyan cartridge for any leaks and if possible put in a known good or oem cartridge in the cyan and see if it solves the problem.

 

[j0dan]

Thanks for all the useful information.

I'll do a scan & a photo here. The scan didn't quite capture the colors.

Scan: http://i431.photobucket.com/albums/qq34/danbuhler/canon1.jpg
Photo: http://i431.photobucket.com/albums/qq34/danbuhler/IMG_7143.jpg
Photo (different white balance): http://i431.photobucket.com/albums/qq34/danbuhler/IMG_7144.jpg

My waste ink tank is at 35%. Good to know. I figured it would be much higher after owning it so long.

I'm using generic ink cartridges. No idea what the make is. But I've been the same ink for 2 years now before this problem came up.
I've replaced the blue, so we'll see what happens.

 

[ghwellsjr]

Can you give us a scan of the nozzle check just after doing a cleaning when it looks the best?

Here's another experiment you can do: Remove all your cartridges and do a deep cleaning (called "head refreshing" on the printer's display) followed by a nozzle check. You can do this on plain paper. Repeat until nothing prints. Then insert your cyan cartridge in the printer and do a regular head cleaning followed by a nozzle check. Only the cyan block should print. Open the cover so that the print head moves to the center. Wait ten minutes or so, close the cover and do another nozzle check repeat every ten minutes until you see a difference in the nozzle check or until you have repeated five times. If there has been no contamination after the fifth time, repeat the same test except don't open the cover between trials. Finally, repeat the whole test with the magenta cartridge instead of the cyan cartridge. Let us know the results.

BTW, it would be a good idea to cover the outlet ports of the cartridges that are out of your printer with vinyl tape or the orange caps that the cartridges came with. You may have to hold them on with rubber bands. You don't want the ink to dry out on the outlet ports.

 

[leo8088]

By looking at your bottom nozzle check it shows streaking on Cyan and Magenta. This is a typical symptom of leaking ink cartridges. Some ink is pooled outside of some nozzles which resulted in such streaking on multiple colors because those nozzles were blocked from the outside of the nozzles. During a cleaning cycle a plastic wiper of the purge unit will scrape the surface of the print head once, so the symptom disappears. But the offending cartridge will keep leaking still so 10 minutes later the symptom comes right back. Just replace your generic ink cartridges with OEM cartridges and refill them. The problem will not bother again. Using generic ink cartridges is a bad...bad idea.

 

[j0dan]

So far changing my ink cartridge has fixed the problem. It's still printing perfect colors. Thanks!

@leo8088 What's bad about generic cartridges? They are certainly less work than refilling.

 

[j0dan]

When I printed an extended nozzle check, some of the blue ink did not show up. It's not a perfect scan, but the 2nd, and 4th blue rows only have a few dots at the beginning.

http://i431.photobucket.com/albums/qq34/danbuhler/2010_01_31_18_04_55.jpg

 

[JoePineapples]

So far changing my ink cartridge has fixed the problem. It's still printing perfect colors. Thanks!

@leo8088 What's bad about generic cartridges? They are certainly less work than refilling.

Generic carts aren't as good as a refilled OEM canon carts I used generic carts in my IP8600 it was always getting clogged heads and I wasted more ink cleaning than printer

With generic carts is always a unknown you never know what ink they use or if the cart is any good

Also I would beware of refillable carts like these :-

http://cgi.ebay.com/Ink-Refillable-...mQQptZPrinter_Accessories?hash=item335931423a

I though I would get the best of both worlds easy to refill and known ink however they leaked in the printer

Now after I have cleaned and sorted the printer I only use Canon OEM carts and Hobbicolor inks

Joe

And the German method refill

 

[leo8088]

Generic ink cartridges are known to be the cause of the majority of problems of inkjet printers. They lack the quality to provide correct ink flows and they mostly have incorrect formulation that results in ink boiling in the nozzles. Ink boiling in the nozzles is a main reason to cause clogging. Tiny little ink droplets are very easy and quick to boil inside the nozzles if the ink is not formulated correctly. Boiled ink loses its water content (vaporization) and is thickened instantly to cause clogging. The nozzles will overheat and burn out if you keep using the printer with clogged print head.

I have used Hobbicolors ink for many years. It is one of the most reliable ink when used in Canon OEM ink cartridges. For over 3 years I have never got a clogging so far. I use my printers everyday and have printed over 3 boxes (5000 sheets) of paper. That's 15,000 sheets of paper printed. My printers often started printing 30 - 50 sheets of documents first thing in the morning right after it is turned on. I don't have time to mess with the printer. I don't have time to do nozzle check. I have had enough of that in the past especially with Epson printers. I need to print immediately. Luckily Hobbicolors ink and OEM ink cartridges has enabled me for such a careless use of my printers for many years. If I were told that I had to babysit my printers all the time It would not have been my choice for my printing needs. I need the productivity from a reliable printing platform that just keep printing without having to stop to fix problems.

Don't waste time and money in generic cartridges. They don't work mostly. By looking at the style of packaging you pretty much can jump on a conclusion where they come from and whether they are trustworthy. I don't need to spell out where they are made, do I?