help please.

[Osage]

I have an old canon mp730 printer I had somewhat put out to pasture.

I have recently fired it back up, and no matter what I do, when I power it up, I get this message on my LCD screen of a "wrong cartridge".

I have pulled and rinsed the printhead, it seems very clean, reinstalled newly refilled cartridges in the correct slots, and I still get a wrong cartridge
message.

A check on the Canon website is vague in the extreme, because it could be a bad printhead or something else on the the printer needs repair.

I would be willing to get a new printhead if I knew its was the printhead, but I am loathe to get a new printhead only to discover the problem is somewhere else.

For any photo printing needs, I am networked to my wife's ip4000, but I really need the standalone outgoing faxing, sheet feeding faxing, and flat bed copying features of the mp730.

Can anyone offer me a way to tell if a new printhead would be a wasted investment?

 

[nche11]

You can install the print head on another mp730 and see if it will work. It is probably a dead print head. Wrong cartridge actually means wrong print head according to Canon user guide of many printers. The printer is unable to identify the print head. Don't know what causes it to become unidentifiable.

 

[Osage]

Thank you for the reply nche11.

Now the question is. (a) Does anyone know why it fails to see the printhead? (b) Is it a permanent condition or might more print head cleaning cure it?

 

[websnail]

just a thought Osage but if you do have to go the new printhead route then try to get a US based individual to source it.. I expect the MP730 will be quite cheap as they're definitely ex-stock nowadays.

I'd probably go with nche11 but only as a gut call rather than any direct experience with the MP730 (before my time with Canon )

Good luck..

 

[nche11]

I did have a direct experience with is before. It happened on one of MP7xx but I don't remember exactly the numbers. I took the print head to a friend's house and tested on a same printer. It still complained about wrong cartridge on that printer too. It could be a contact problem if the print head sat in the printer not squarely. The printer worked sometimes still but most often it would complain about wrong cartridge. It went to a thrifty store after we had enough of it.

 

[websnail]

Good point...You should check for any bent pins that connect to the printhead (they're usually in the carriage).

Had that return a "incorrect printhead" error in the MP800 I have so may be worth a look.