How to reach ink waste tank? /Dismantle i960

[Soporose]

Hi Trigger and ghwellsjr.

> Canon has done an outstanding job in engineering these
> carts and if you treat them right, and keep them in good
> working condition, they will not fail you.

Well, live and learn! I confess that the "engineering" of the cartridge itself is not something I was aware would be a factor. In that case I can see why many people refill instead of taking the easier route of buying 3rd party ink tanks.

If the quality of the physical tank itself is so important then I'm prepared to try refilling, if only to try and get to the bottom of this recurring problem.

I've spent a lot of time today reading this forum and following links. I'm comfortable with the idea of filling almost-empty tanks (German needle method or drilling hole in top) and I found Grandad35's technique to clean BCI-6 carts so they can be refilled after they are clogged/dried out:
http://www.nifty-stuff.com/docs/canon-BCI-6-cartridges.php
Would flushing like that also work for Black-3e, being a photo black?

> Anyway, if you have not been refilling ink and only using these ink carts,... it is about time you cleaned your printhead.

I've found a lot of disjointed pieces to the head cleaning puzzle, but so far I haven't found a clear and complete description of head cleaning the "professional" way. I'm sure such must be here somewhere, just haven't found it. Link anyone?

The other head cleaning thing I'm not sure of is exactly how to make a cleaning cartridge. Is it just a matter of purge with water and fill with cleaning agent? What then? Replace cleaning cart in printer and do some print runs? Again, if anyone has a useful link please point me.

I've decided (a deduced guess) that my current problem is no/poor supply of 6-Black. I've soaked the head assembly in warm water for a couple of hours (frequent water changes) and now have it sitting on a paper towel soaked in methylated spirits - saw that recommended somewhere.

BULK REFILL INKS
Unfortunately the ink recommendations I've found on this forum, being in the USA or UK, are no use to me. In looking for an ink supplier here in Australia it seems to me that most are offering very small quantities for too-high prices. The best deal I've found so far is
http://www.valueprint.net.au/product.php?productid=16246&cat=253&page=1
With tax and shipping that set of 5 costs me A$64.50 (about US$53) delivered. How many tank fills do I get out of 100ml of bulk?

Any Aussies reading this, where are you buying your bulk inks?

BTW, is there any problem with re-installing a head that isn't completely dry throughout, so long as the circuit-board connector between head unit and carriage is dry?

TIA
- Billy

 

[Soporose]

UPDATE:

Well, after soaking in water for a couple of hours, and standing on a pad wet with methylated spirits overnight, I put the head back in and the printout still wasn't right, but I couldn't tell exactly what was happening.

So I created a test page of my own - a page full of 8 pixel wide vertical black lines, with about a 10 pixel space between the lines.

Now I can clearly see what is happening, but I don't know what it means in terms of head blockage or whatever.

There are alternate bands of black and cyan the full length of the page (see below). Perfectly regular. To the naked eye every band (both black and cyan) is the same width - about 2.5mm in height as best I can measure.

Any ideas?

TIA
- Billy

 

[ghwellsjr]

If your printer is anything like mine, the pattern you are getting would mean you are telling the printer that you are using photo paper. This would also be confirmed by your comment earlier concerning 6-Black. When printing 100% black on photo paper, my printers use photo black, cyan and magenta. I'm guessing that your printer is not printing any magenta and half of the photo black nozzles are not printing. This is not characteristic of an ink flow problem but rather an electrical problem. All it takes is for one of the signal paths to be interrupted for this behavior to happen. If you have one of your other replaced print heads and it behaves the same way, I would conclude the problem is in the printer and probably cannot be fixed, but maybe you can find a loose connection somewhere.

What happens if you tell the printer that you are using plain paper?

What does a nozzle check look like?

Concerning making cleaning cartridges, you do not have to purge the empty cartridges before filling them with cleaning solution, especially if you make five of them, one for each color. You fill them just like you would ink in a cartridge, whatever you preferred method is. (Mine is vacuum filling.) In fact, there is a little advantage in having some color in them because it helps to see when clogs are disolved. Pure cleaning solution is almost invisible on the page.

One other thing: you mentioned that the Black-3e is photo black but it isn't. It is pigment black and you do not have to purge it when filling with cleaning solution.

Have you read the FAQs listed near the top of this page?

 

[Trigger 37]

Soporose,... There is a much better way to figure out what your printhead is doing than the test print you created. I looked at your print results and like ghwelljr indicated, it does not give you any clear information. The BEST thing to do is to go into Service Mode, and then push the Resume button once and then the power button. This will print the "Service Test Print". It is 100% better than the the nozzle check and it has much more data. One of the sections of my new Manual goes into detail to explain all of the information that is contained in the Service Test Print. The is the first thing that Canon Service Tech do when the get one to repair. The top lines of text tell all kinds of things but the "D" value is the percentage of waste ink that has been dumped.

The crosshatched lines in each of the colors, including pigment black and Dye black are detailed tests of each print nozzle one at a time. It is clear enough so you can see exactly which nozzles are printing and which are clogged. It could not get any better or more detailed than that. I use a 10x hand magnifier to examine the print. If you just look at it everything may look fine, but when you examine it under 10x you will see some nozzles that are not printing. Because this is so important, I used this as an example in my Manual and included a test print for the i860 that at first looks just fine. Because the Manual is in pdf format, and the images that I included are very high resolution, it is easy to magnify this to 500% (5x) in Adobe Acrobat reader. At 5x you can see which nozzles are bad.

Remember, the printer has banks of nozzles for the Cyan and Magenta. One for regular Cyan and the second set to simulate Photo Cyan. In the Service test print you will see 1 large set for pigment black, 4 patterns for Cyan and 4 sets for Magenta, two for yellow, and finally two for Dye black. Why 4 for Cyan & Magenta, because there are 2 each for regular Cyan and 2 each for Photo cyan nozzles. These printer are also capable of micro liter ink dots, so the second bank of patterns is testing the picoliter ink dots. So there you have it. As an Engineer, if I wanted to design a test pattern for my printhead, I'd make a pattern that would easily show the ability of each and every nozzle in the printhead to draw a short line. Canon does this two ways. Each of the crosshatch patterns is generated by the same stored timing signals. As an example, let take the Black pattern since it is much larger and easier to see with a naked eye. The pattern starts by firing EVERY nozzle in the black printhead at the same time. This makes a vertical line which is the left edge of the crosshatch. The number 1, 10,20,30,40,50,60,70,80, etc. nozzles fire for "N" millimeters. This makes horizontal lines "N" millimeters long. Then ALL the nozzles fire once again and this creates the second vertical line. Next the number 2, 11, 21, 31,41,51,61,...etc. nozzles fire for a period of "N" millimeters. The pattern repeats until EVERY nozzle in every bank has fired. This creates the total crosshatch. It demonstrates that each nozzle will fire and print correctly and not sputter or spit, or smear, and it demonstrates the nozzles will fire at the exact timing signal and turn on and off to create exact size ink dots in the perfect place. If you wanted to know what your printhead is doing, this is the best test.

The remainder of the Service Test print is about accuracy in placing very straight lines in exact positions. It also checks how the printer registers paper and aligns the paper to print and that it starts and finishes the print in the exact position of the paper. It also tells the Canon Service tech just about everything you did to your printer after you last left them, and exactly how many pages you printed, what kind they were, which were black, which were color, which were photos, etc. etc. etc.

Also, I don't think you let your printhead soak enough. If you do a test print and you don't get each crosshatch to print, you need to do more cleaning. Of course it could still be that you're not getting the ink to the printhead to begin with, and this could be bad ink carts, or a bad purge unit. If you ever take the printer back to the Canon Service shop, make them print a Service Test print for you before you leave. Then you know you have a good printer.

 

[Soporose]

Thanks guys - I'm gonna have to sit down and study all that.

I just dropped the i865 off at the Canon Service Center again. Last chance. If they fix it under warranty (or at least for very cheap) all well and good. If not I will buy a head myself directly from Canon and I'll be looking for Trigger's manual on how to do everything myself.

On the way home I bought a multi-function unit - a Canon Pixma MP530. My fax quit recently and I haven't had a copier for some time, and this unit does it all, plus duplex and CD printing (a must for me). There was a $100 cash-back deal going so why not? A forum search for MP530 didn't turn up much, so I hope that model meets with the approval of you experts???

If the MP530 prints at least as well as the i865 (especially on CDs) the old one can be a backup - if I get it working.

Now I have to find a good ink available here in Australia. Will the same ink do for both i865 and MP530?

- Billy

 

[Trigger 37]

Soporose, Congratulations. I think the MP530 will be a great printer for you. Be aware that the ink carts used for that printer are the CLI-8 and PGI-8 ink cartridges which have special chips on them that prevent you from refilling them. They only want you to use original Canon Ink carts that cost $15.00 each. Since there are 4 of them that will be $60 each time you need new ink. I don't know what they cost where you are but you have just embarked on a new adventure.

Check out the CLI-8 ink cart post on this web site for more information. As for the printer, electronically it is identical to the other MP printers except it does not use the cheap BCI-6 or BCI-3 ink carts.

 

[ghwellsjr]

Actually, the chips don't prevent you from refilling, they just threaten to void the warranty and disable the ink level monitor, which adds to the risk that you will need the warranty.

Also, you have four of the CLI-8 carts and one PGI-5BK cart which is $2 more than the CLI-8 carts which brings the total to $77 for a full set, but you can save a little money by buying the combo packs.

I would not recommend buying third-party cartridges because they require you to transfer the chip from the Canon cartridge and they are inferior anyway. What I would do is continue to buy Canon cartridges during the year that your warranty is in force and then as you approach the end of the year, refill as many of them as you have empty so that you will be ready to use them when you run out the next time.

Also, don't replace your cartridges until one of them says it is out of ink (as opposed to warning you that it is low on ink). Then whenever you replace one of the empty CLI cartridges, replace all of the ones that say they are low because they will soon be empty due to the priming process that occurs whenever you replace an empty cartridge. It primes all the CLIs together which uses up a fair amount of ink and if you only replace the empty ones, you'll be priming more than you need to. The PGI cartridges is primed separately so you only have to replace it when it registers empty.

There is a difference in some of the inks used in the chipped cartridges compared to the unchipped cartridges and you can search this forum for the difference. The chipped cartridge go on heads that have smaller nozzles and that may be one of the reasons for the difference.

 

[Trigger 37]

ghwellsjr,.. It was late at night and there had been a lot of red wine to drink while we were out on the lake in the boat. Anyway, I was so tired I did not have the energy or the time to try to explain the whole CLI-8 ink cart story to jflan. It just takes too long and many people who have not studied the problem just don't get it. I just felt I should warn jflan about the new adventure he signed up for.

I actually am using a slightly different approach to refilling my iP6600d ink carts. To start with I have a complete set of spare ink carts, so I use the original carts to refill. I keep the other carts for emergency while I'm still under warranty. If a problem comes up that requires service, I will clear the eeprom, install the backup carts, re-create the problem, and then take it to the Service center. It will look like a brand new printer with some kind of problem. Don't ask how I got a second set of ink carts out of Canon.

 

[Soporose]

Great info guys. Thanks very much.

While at the dealers I bought a second set of carts for the MP530 at a cost of a few cents short of a hundred bucks (in US$) for the combo pack (color) plus a PGI-5BK, so you can see consumables are much dearer here.

So going on Trigger's last post, I can refill the CLI-8 and PGI-5BK carts but will lose the ink-level monitor and that will show up in the EEPROM readout. However in the event of needing a warranty service I can install original carts, so long as I then clear the EEPROM before taking it to service.

Have I got that right?

As for the old problem...

Well, they want to put another head in the i865, at my cost. That would be the fourth head since December 21 last! I've told them to forget it. After I get it back I'll set it aside until I get Trigger's manual, then see if I can resuscitate it myself with some concerted cleaning.

Actually... I might hook it up straight away and just put cleaner in all five cartridges for a while. I only have methylated spirits (metho) but I think I could get some isopropyl alcohol from the pharmacy - unless that's something else that's been banned here in recent years; I used to buy it for cleaning floppy and tape-drive heads. Ammonia products are hard to come by here.

Will metho do, d'ya think?

- Billy

 

[Trigger 37]

Soporose,... For your new MP530, I would make sure you are getting some good ink if you are going to refill. Do you have any idea what it costs to ship ink from the US to Aus? If I were you I would search the internet in AUS for someone that sells "Image Specialist Ink". The store in the US is PrecisionColors.com or MIS. I also have had very good luck with Atlanticinkjet.com with bulk ink in 8oz bottles.

If you took the old printer back home, does it still print Black ink? If so, do a Service Test print right away with the current head you have in it. This will print out the printhead nozzle Temperatures which may be a clue why you are killing so many heads.