Canon Pro100s smearing black ink

[Roberto Smith]

I was printing stickers on glossy vinyl sticker material, did a few sheets that seemed to be okay then about halfway through one of the sheets it started smearing the ink all over the place as below. Nozzle check pattern shows the black isn't working properly. I've tried cleaning cycles (including a deep clean) but it's still doing it.

I refilled the black cart yesterday, using inks I've used lots of times before and the cart also has been refilled multiple times before with no issues. The printhead is fairly new, changed it a couple of months ago and it's a genuine Canon one. I use the printer regularly.

Anyone got any ideas? Looks like a printhead issue but I can't seem to resolve it with cleaning.

Only issue I can think is that the ink I refilled the cart with is from Jan. 2024 so it's a bit old. Not sure if it goes "off" and can cause an issue like this? One odd thing is that the areas of print with a lot of black "feel" different to the areas with colour. Normally the whole print looks and feels "shiny" but the black is now duller and feels different to the coloured parts (and different to how it "usually" does).

 

[Roberto Smith]

After several goes at cleaning again, this is what I'm getting. It's worse if anything. I'm not sure if it's ink starvation as I've had that before with clogged printheads, this looks different....lots of smudging as well as incomplete printing.

 

[PeterBJ]

I have had an iP7250 fail in a similar way. The photo black stripe was missing from the nozzle check print, but instead there were small black dots all over the printed page. This was obviously some electronic failure in the printhead or the main board. I wouldn't gamble on replacing the printhead, as a defective main board might ruin a new printhead, so I dumped the printer.

 

[Artur5]

Maybe you’re right. but looking carefully that black band I don’t think it’s electric failure. When this happens, usually one half of the stripe is totally missing, not smearing, you get a neat horizontal cut separating the “good” from the “bad” nozzles.
In this case there’s smearing in the top of the black band going in slanted sense, not horizontal. There’s also some ink delivered into the bottom part of the band, meaning that the nozzles aren’t electronically dead.

IMHO, those symptoms point either to ink starving (cartridge refilled many times -> sponge in suboptimal condition...) or/and partial clog in many black nozzles ( as seen in the nozzle check). Most likely, the ink has trouble going through the half clogged nozzles, so the droplets are delivered a few milliseconds late and in random directions, hence the smear and fuzziness in the prints.

If regular or even deep cleanings don’t clear the issue, probably reverting to a new OEM black cart will fix the clogs slowly, OEM inks dissolves quite well dried third party ink, but it takes some time. Now, if the clogs are really severe, not even Canon ink will help. Of course, if the ink was OEM extracted from Canon large tanks, forget this suggestion.

As a last resource try cleaning the printhead out of the printer. You probably know the drill but, just in case, remove the printhead and leave it overnight on a shallow tray containing distilled water and a few drops of dish soap. Just enough liquid to cover the bottom of the printhead, less than ¼ of inch I’d say. Change the water at least two or three times shaking gently sideways the printhead. Finally remove the printhead from the tray and leave it dry VERY well, before reinstalling it into the printer.

 

[Roberto Smith]

I removed the cart and tried to clean it, I think I may have found the issue. Not sure what the black gunge is but pretty sure this is the cause of the problem!