Canon Print Head Alignment

[ghwellsjr]

Does anybody know what the purpose of the Print Head Alignment for Canon printers is and what it actually does?

When I had an HP with two cartridges with built-in heads, the print head alignment was necessary to take care of slight variations in the installation of the two cartridges, but with my Canon printers, there is just one print head, so what is there to align?

 

[AlienSteve]

I suppose for variations in manufacture of the head.

 

[alexandereci]

I suppose for variations in manufacture of the head.

If so, then we don't have to align the head after each refill, just when using a new cart... then again, I've done aligns after every refill, and sometimes notice one or two adjustments needed when compared to the previous align procedure.

 

[ghwellsjr]

I suppose for variations in manufacture of the head.

If so, then we don't have to align the head after each refill, just when using a new cart... then again, I've done aligns after every refill, and sometimes notice one or two adjustments needed when compared to the previous align procedure.

I always thought that even if the cartridges with print heads had no variations in manufacture, you would still have to align them because there could be slight variations in the installation of the cartridges in a printer. Even if you removed a cartridge and put it back in (refilled or not) you would still need to do another alignment. The alignment process requires you to observe some line segments on a printed page and report to the alignment utility which portions of the line segments line up exactly in the horizontal and vertical directions. The utility would then influence the printer driver to compensate accordingly.

But in my Canon printers, there is just one head assembly, although the pigment black head is physically separate from the dye ink head. If there is the need to align these two heads, the utility never asks me which portions of the printout looks the best, so how can it know the results of the alignment?

 

[alexandereci]

Even if you removed a cartridge and put it back in (refilled or not) you would still need to do another alignment.

Yes, I am under the impression that alignment is for variations in cart installation. Maybe you pushed it in slightly more last time, or maybe the cart sits just slightly differently than the last install --- printhead alignment takes care of this issues and assures accurate "placement" of dots.

But in my Canon printers, there is just one head assembly, although the pigment black head is physically separate from the dye ink head. If there is the need to align these two heads, the utility never asks me which portions of the printout looks the best, so how can it know the results of the alignment?

I don't use a black cart for my iP1200 -- I'm cheapo, and since my local store doesn't stock pigment black anyway, I thought "what the heck, why buy something that I'm gonna refill with something else?" As I said, I align after each refill, so the printer takes a page, prints out cyan and magenta bars (in columns A - G), and I see which one has the least vertical streaks in it, if any. Currently, it is printing perfectly, and I can pick one that is as "solid" as I can make out. However, note that these are vertical streaks, nothing horizontal (I remember my old HP printer had both vert and horiz bars I had to align, but only vert bars for my Canon). So I enter the numbers of the "solid" colors, then click OK, then the printer program tells me alignment is complete. I usually print out a couple of nozzle checks and maybe do some cleaning or two afterwards.

I take it you are experiencing something different?

 

[AlienSteve]

Remember those nozzles are aligned finer than a human hair. And when installed in the holder, can be out of place by a small enough amount that you would have a hard time feeling it shift.

My Canon's have an optical sensor that detects alignment, does it automatically. Epson printers require me to select which is closest, and keep doing so until the center pattern is the one lined up.

 

[mikling]

The alignment can compensate for timing variances between the jet and carriage movement. The nozzles are not static so they must be coordinated. The carriage is possibly harder to control timing wise, so I must suspect the timing adjust the pulse times as that is intuitively easier to change.

 

[jackson]

In the case of the IP5000, the user guide states that (manual) alignment can be carried out "if ruled lines are printed misaligned".
It does not mention if the ruled lines are the lines which print out from a nozzle check or whether you are to guage by eye the results of normal printouts.
The manual alignment is set up from the Maintenance panel 'Custom settings'.

 

[ghwellsjr]

I had not been able until today to get the manual alignment to work because I was getting the Maintenance panel from the print dialog box of an application. I finally realized you have to go to the Printers folder in the control panel and do it from there.

Thanks to all for explaining how this works. I never dreamed that Canon printers would have a mechanism to do automatic alignments.

 

[AlienSteve]

Oh, yeah, it's great! I've used Canon printers for years, when I got an Epson it was a rude awakening having to waste lots of sheets of paper doing manual alignments.