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The following technique is ideal for unclogging nozzles on a Canon printer that is not connected to a computer. It only works on older Canon printers that use the unchipped cartridges like the BCI-3e or the BCI-6.
Take an empty, but not purged, BCI-3, 5, or 6 cartridge of whatever color you want to clean the nozzles for. Turn it upside down. Using a syringe, eye dropper, or a pinched straw, suck up some print head cleaning solution or Windex or other window cleaner from its container and deposit it slowly on the outlet port. The filter will immediately soak it up and pass it on to the sponge material below. Keep doing this until the entire sponge material is saturated with liquid. Stop if you see liquid in the air gap between the sponge material and the top (now on the bottom) of the cartridge. Do not expect any liquid to go into the reservoir part of the cartridge. Mark the cartridge using a permanent marker that it has Windex or whatever you put in it. Wait about an hour for the ink to diffuse back into all parts of the sponge before attempting to use the cleaning cartridge.
To use this cleaning cartridge, insert it into the printer, momentarily hit the button that detects that the cover is closed, remove the cartridge and hit the button again. Finally, put the cleaning cartridge back in the printer and close the cover. Command the printer to do a nozzle check. You will note that there is a long pause while the printer is going through a cleaning cycle before it does the nozzle check.
If there are still clogged nozzles, open the cover, remove the cleaning cartridge, tap the button that detects the cover is closed, replace the cleaning cartridge, close the cover and command another nozzle check. Keep repeating until all the nozzles are clear or until it is obvious that no further improvement will occur.
How does this work? On the older Canon printers (without chips in the cartridge), the printer can detect when a cartridge with an empty reservoir is inserted in the printer which is what this cleaning cartridge is because its reservoir is empty. When you remove the cleaning cartridge and hit the cover-down button, the printer thinks you have just installed a full cartridge, even though there is no cartridge at all. At this point, it schedules a cleaning cycle because it has to get ink flowing through the new full cartridge but it doesn't do the cleaning cycle until you command it to print something. Next, when you reinsert the cleaning cartridge, the printer knows that it is an "empty" cartridge but it remembers that it still needs to do a cleaning cycle. Finally, when you command the printer to do a nozzle check, it first performs the cleaning cycle which is what you want it to do.
Obviously, if your printer is connected to a computer, all you need to do is command cleaning cycles and nozzle checks which is much easier--this procedure is for when you are working on printers that are not connected to a computer.
Here are some additional helpful hints:
Keep in mind that most Canon printers have two separate purge pads which are used in the cleaning cycles. If your printer has a large pigment black cartridge (BCI-3eBk), then it has its own purge pad and all the thinner dye ink cartridges have another purge pad which cleans all of the dye ink nozzles at the same time. If your printer does not have a large pigment black cartridge, then there may be one or two purge pads. The way to tell is to go to the maintenance tab on the printer dialog box and click on the cleaning button. There it will list the ink groups. Note which colors are in each group or if there is just one group.
When the printer does a cleaning cycle, it has to clean all the nozzles in an ink group. If you are cleaning the pigment black nozzles, then there are no other colors to clean at the same time. However, if you want to clean the nozzles for a certain color dye ink, then all of the dye inks in that group will be cleaned at the same time. This means that you should make cleaning cartridges for all of your dye inks in a group or you will waste a lot of ink.
The reason why I stated that you want to start with an empty but not purged cartridge is that you want some color mixed in with the cleaning solution so that you can see the results of the nozzle check. You should periodicaly add some more cleaning solution to the cartridges as they have been used so that they don't run dry. Your printer will not tell you when they are out of "ink" with this technique. If you continue to refill your cleaning cartridge so many times that you can barely see the nozzle check patterns, then switch over to a new empty cartridge or add some ink of the appropriate color the next time you add the cleaning solution.
Take an empty, but not purged, BCI-3, 5, or 6 cartridge of whatever color you want to clean the nozzles for. Turn it upside down. Using a syringe, eye dropper, or a pinched straw, suck up some print head cleaning solution or Windex or other window cleaner from its container and deposit it slowly on the outlet port. The filter will immediately soak it up and pass it on to the sponge material below. Keep doing this until the entire sponge material is saturated with liquid. Stop if you see liquid in the air gap between the sponge material and the top (now on the bottom) of the cartridge. Do not expect any liquid to go into the reservoir part of the cartridge. Mark the cartridge using a permanent marker that it has Windex or whatever you put in it. Wait about an hour for the ink to diffuse back into all parts of the sponge before attempting to use the cleaning cartridge.
To use this cleaning cartridge, insert it into the printer, momentarily hit the button that detects that the cover is closed, remove the cartridge and hit the button again. Finally, put the cleaning cartridge back in the printer and close the cover. Command the printer to do a nozzle check. You will note that there is a long pause while the printer is going through a cleaning cycle before it does the nozzle check.
If there are still clogged nozzles, open the cover, remove the cleaning cartridge, tap the button that detects the cover is closed, replace the cleaning cartridge, close the cover and command another nozzle check. Keep repeating until all the nozzles are clear or until it is obvious that no further improvement will occur.
How does this work? On the older Canon printers (without chips in the cartridge), the printer can detect when a cartridge with an empty reservoir is inserted in the printer which is what this cleaning cartridge is because its reservoir is empty. When you remove the cleaning cartridge and hit the cover-down button, the printer thinks you have just installed a full cartridge, even though there is no cartridge at all. At this point, it schedules a cleaning cycle because it has to get ink flowing through the new full cartridge but it doesn't do the cleaning cycle until you command it to print something. Next, when you reinsert the cleaning cartridge, the printer knows that it is an "empty" cartridge but it remembers that it still needs to do a cleaning cycle. Finally, when you command the printer to do a nozzle check, it first performs the cleaning cycle which is what you want it to do.
Obviously, if your printer is connected to a computer, all you need to do is command cleaning cycles and nozzle checks which is much easier--this procedure is for when you are working on printers that are not connected to a computer.
Here are some additional helpful hints:
Keep in mind that most Canon printers have two separate purge pads which are used in the cleaning cycles. If your printer has a large pigment black cartridge (BCI-3eBk), then it has its own purge pad and all the thinner dye ink cartridges have another purge pad which cleans all of the dye ink nozzles at the same time. If your printer does not have a large pigment black cartridge, then there may be one or two purge pads. The way to tell is to go to the maintenance tab on the printer dialog box and click on the cleaning button. There it will list the ink groups. Note which colors are in each group or if there is just one group.
When the printer does a cleaning cycle, it has to clean all the nozzles in an ink group. If you are cleaning the pigment black nozzles, then there are no other colors to clean at the same time. However, if you want to clean the nozzles for a certain color dye ink, then all of the dye inks in that group will be cleaned at the same time. This means that you should make cleaning cartridges for all of your dye inks in a group or you will waste a lot of ink.
The reason why I stated that you want to start with an empty but not purged cartridge is that you want some color mixed in with the cleaning solution so that you can see the results of the nozzle check. You should periodicaly add some more cleaning solution to the cartridges as they have been used so that they don't run dry. Your printer will not tell you when they are out of "ink" with this technique. If you continue to refill your cleaning cartridge so many times that you can barely see the nozzle check patterns, then switch over to a new empty cartridge or add some ink of the appropriate color the next time you add the cleaning solution.
