Clogged Canon print head

McSpin said:
I wish I would have known about that ebay deal sooner. I'd have saved $15.00. I already bought the new printhead, because even though rediculous, it was still the cheapest option. When I bought the printer for $45.00, it came with ink cartridges, color and black. It just seems like a total rip to pay more for the replacement printhead than for the whole printer with cartridges.
Click to expand...
I hear you; and I don't disagree. For me, it was a toss up between the cheap carts the 1500 uses, and the surreal quality of paying as much for the replacement print head as the whole printer. And if I'd have found the ebay deal - and this site - sooner, I'd certainly have posted sooner. As it turns out, I ended up ordering 3 of those replacement print heads, one for the 1500, one for a Pixma ip 2000 my g/f has, and one for the future if/when I need it for the MP130. I really do wish I'd found this site sooner. It's great; I've already learned more about printers in one day here than the whole time I've been into computers.
 
Well, I received the new printheads and the one put into the i350 works fine. I'm still not able to print black with the ip1500. The cartridge is a brand new Canon cartridge that has been comfirmed to work in the other printer. Can anyone give me a reason why the black would not print on a brand new printhead and cartridge? Color prints.
 
hmm... i haven't boughta nother head yet for my ip3000 being afraid there may be another problem. Such as MAYBE the purge unit burned up? wondering if this is the case for yours? do u get a purge unit error code? i have gotten those also. i may end up buying a newer chromalife canon printer and refill by hand until chip resetters and stuff come out soon. not sur i want to dump $60 bux into something that may still be broke. i think the cost for a purge unit is like $30 though.

could be electrical? who knows...hardly worth trying to figure out anymore...might be just as eay to buy another printer....and don't use generic pigment black inks... dyes seem safe enough.... nothing really there to cause blockage. like i need to print dark blacks on crap copy paper anyways... rather have nice blacks on photo paper. i may look for a canon printer that doesn;t use the pigment inks. pigments are great for longevity...but smaller color gamut, and have o use special media.
 
Would a bad purge unit cause black to not print, but allow color to print perfectly? I don't get any error codes and never did.

I don't want to switch to OEM carts for black, since black is 95% of what I print - no savings there. If I decide to switch to a dye ink for the black, does anyone know what my options are on a Canon ip1500?

I contacted the company where I got the printhead and they said the printheads are a bit finnicky and that they would send me a new one. Hopefully, this will solve the problem, but I would still be interested in using a dye ink, if it would prevent clogging down the road.
 
A breakthrough in print head cleaning !!!

.....well kind of.

I had read over most of the mile long thread above, and saw the one little device that created a sealed conection between the ink port and a hypodermic, so the head could be flushed with direct pressure.
But I did not see where I could get that little piece.... So I got to brainstorming, and then it hit me ! I went right down to my local tropical fish store and got a short length of aquarium airline tubing.
Took a piece of about one inch which slid firmly and tightly around the end of my hypodermic (with the needle removed). It took a bit of careful pushing and twisting to get it over the ink port, but once it went, it was obvious, and it fit so snug, that you could even let go of the hypodermic for a second or two, while it supported itself.

So, onto the cleaning; I just used hot tap water, and yes, if I wasn't careful, the tubing would pop off of the ink port (just because the ports are so short) but without much trouble, I could keep the tubing connected for some very thourough flushing. I went through and flushed out each color port.
Dried off the print head externally. Popped it in the printer. Did a light cleaning and a test print. Bam !
For the first time in 6 weeks (albeit most of this time was spent waiting for Inkgrabber to replace my faulty carts) it printing all 6 colors ! All at one time no less !

So I do a small test print.... perfect. Then an 8 1/2 x 11. It prints about half way.... then starts banding terribly. Back to the test print.... two colors not flowing :-( Damn :-(

So I take all the carts and the head back out. Do another flushing. But this time, not only do I flush water through the head, I also try pulling some water back through the other way too. Back in the printer. Bam ! Working again. I print one 8 1/2 x 11 which shows some banding for about the first inch, but then clears up and prints nice. Of course I toss that one, and the next prints beautifully (no, I mean 'beautifully'... you should have seen my test subject :-)

So, this morning, I try a test print...... 3 colors gone again :-(

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So anyway, the point of this whole post, in a nutshell, is that a short, cheap piece of airline tubing will make a tight conection between a Canon i960 inkport and a hypodermic, which will allow for a good solid flushing.......

But if you have my rotten luck like me, you still might have to buy a new head, or new printer altogether, anyway.

Peace,
Fish
 
Any allusions about the test subject? I am always eager to expand my horizons in regards to beauty... :)

A very very interesting approach to head cleaning, thanks!
 
Blonde hair, blue eyes, and WAY too pretty to actually go out with, but very nice to look at :-)

Oh.... the only thing I haven't tried is to use this same flushing aproach, but with alcohol, instead of water.... maybe alcohol first, followed by water. I did read that post about the flamability of alcohol, mixed with an electric current..... and so I was thinking, at this point, I wouldn't too much care if my printer caught on fire, as long as I could throw it out my window quick enough ! :-)

Peace,
Fish
 
CHris,

sounds like u r going throu the same stuff i have...by thwe way, it's not gonna catch on fire or explode.

so unitl i get time, using my S600 for now to get work done.

also, i found a perfect syringe in the baby section of a grocery store... rubble nozzle fits perfectly over the BLACK port (remove the rubber grommet around the port first ont he BLACK) and also seals nicely over the smalle color ports when you puch it down against the bottom of the plastic housing. (just leave rubber seals on for these colors fore better seal.

nozzles of head are fine....the housing is the culprit (well the crappola black generic ink really). the black channel is blocked pretty good, need physical agitation ...air pressure, hot water, alchohol, finger nail polish remover have'nt helped (got nice headyway with the polish remover tho!) i am thinking the inlet port is blocked at the entry if in fact a sponge there....will disect and pop the screen off when i get time.

later.
 
I've been using airline tubing on the color ports, right along. I also flushed using denatured alcohol and the tubing. I unclogged the color ports and have had no problem printing color. On the larger black port, I used a larger dia. vinyl tubing. I had to cut one wall to a thinner section to fit it over the port, but it worked fine. I also rig my air compressor to these tubing pieces and blew 120 psi air through the ports using the tubing. None of this has worked for the black port, even though it was very effective for the color ones.
 
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