How to reach ink waste tank? /Dismantle i960

[Soporose]

I did a Service Test Print before I took it in:

Head TempBK = 26.5
Head TempC = 27.0
Env Temp = 21

I don't know if Celsius is used globally by Canon, but those of course are Celsius temps.

 

[Soporose]

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.

I sent a message to Image Specialist Inks asking if they have a distributor/reseller in Australia. Shipping costs of anything weighty are over the top!

In the meantime, I have ordered a half-litre of Isopropyl Alcohol from local pharmacist.

Q1. Is it OK to soak the jets part of the head in straight Isopropyl for a while to loosen things up?

Q2. Is it OK to put straight Isopropyl into a cleaning cart?

 

[Trigger 37]

Soporose,....I don't use Isopropyl Alcohol to clean anything except the gold contacts on the back of the printhead after I clean a printhead with water and Windex (Original). I have not done the testing but I have seen many posts from others saying that "Alcohol" is not the best liquid to dissolve dried up ink.

For example, I have cleaned the waste ink Pads on dozens of printers, and the ink that is pooled and dried in the bottom of the printers. I use only tap water and some of that ink had been in there for more than a year. It comes out of the pads and out of the bottom on the printer with just a stream of tap water running on it. Only takes a minute or so. Works every time.

Now the technology and surface area inside a printhead is much different. We are talking microinches and inside the nozzles are the resistors that heat up and create the ink bubble that is ejected to the paper. This constant rapid heating over a long period of time is OK if there is good ink in the nozzle,...but what happens when the wet ink starts to run empty, and we are still trying to print. I think the small amount of ink that is left gets "Baked Dry", but this is only speculation. I just know that it is much harder to clean a really clogged printhead. So to answer your questions;

1. No I would not soak in Isopropyl Alcohol. I would use Windex with Amonia D
2. I don't think the viscosity of Isopropyl Alcohol is correct and since it evaporates in open air, it would dry out an ink cart. I would just buy a pre-made cleaning solution from the good places that sell high quality ink. I have some and it looks to me that it is a mixture of water and Windex. I don't know for sure. If you want to make your own, I would use 50% Windex, 45% distilled water, and 5% ink of the correct color. This would give you an indication that the cleanig solution is getting through the nozzles and just how much old ink you are getting out by the difference in color.

 

[pharmacist]

In fact printer dye ink exists of mainly water, isopropylalcohol and ethylene glycol and dyes. I think it should be safe to use solution existing of 80 % water and 20 % isopropanol and a few drops of propylene glycol (same properties like ethylene glycol, but much safer as ethylene glycol is harmful). This combination ensures that the dissolving power of the water is greatly increased (by the isopropanol) without accelerated evaporation of using alcohol alone(countered by water and propylene glycol). a little Ammonia can be added to improve the dissolving power, but care should be taken not to add to much (not mentioning the pungent smell !) as some metals are (slowly) corroded by this aggresive alkaline agent.

An alternative is immerging the printhead in a shallow amount of this solution mentioned above and put it in an ultrasonic bath to shake the nozzles open. This works great ! Be careful, that the ink is actually driven upwards, so put enough absorption material (tissues) around the ink inlet holes (where the cartridges sit on). Very effective for tenaciously clogged nozzles.

 

[coronakid]

I just ran across this forum and I was very interested in all the discussion regarding the MP530 printer. I recently refilled all five cartridges using ink refill kits and it went smoothly. The hardest part was getting those rubber balls out and it was a little messier than I would've liked. I was a little concerned regarding having to disable the ink level monitor, but the annoying pop-ups seemed to have stopped so I must've been successful in disabling it. I also set up a reminder on my computer to pull out and check the cartridges once a month which is more than adequate for the amount of printing I do. I've printed several photos and Word documents and so far I can't tell the difference.

Personally, I could care less about the warranty. From my experience, printer warranties are pretty much useless anyways since you always run into problems right after the warranty runs out. The printer only cost me $150, so I don't see the advantage in buying a second set of cartridges for $100 just to possibly maintain the warranty. It's all about what you are willing to give up to save hundreds of dollars in the long run. For me, giving up the ink level monitor function and the possible voiding of a warranty is worth saving tons of money. I really enjoy all the great insight on this forum, so keep it up.

 

[Soporose]

An alternative is immerging the printhead in a shallow amount of this solution mentioned above and put it in an ultrasonic bath to shake the nozzles open. This works great ! Be careful, that the ink is actually driven upwards, so put enough absorption material (tissues) around the ink inlet holes (where the cartridges sit on). Very effective for tenaciously clogged nozzles.

Maybe everything does happen for a reason!

When you mentioned the ultrasonic bath I dismissed that as being an unrealistic option for most people, and promptly forgot about it.

Yesterday while at a client's office (podiatrist) I discovered they have an ultrasonic cleaner, which I am welcome to use!

I have managed to get hold of Isopropyl Alcohol (99.5% v/v) and Propylene Glycol. Having trouble getting Ammonia here (Australia) - pharmacists don't use it and not stocked by hardware outlets. But from your comments sounds like I can omit the Ammonia anyway.

Can you give me specific instructions for cleaning a print-head in the ultrasonic device please? My guess:
- Paper towel on saucer
- Soak well with above solution
- Sit print-head on paper towel
- Fire her up!

Or should the print-head be immersed in a pool of the solution?
Is the length of time in the ultrasonic cleaner of importance?
Does the print-head need to be restrained in the ultrasonic cleaner?

My client uses some sort of medical grade cleaning fluid when cleaning instruments in the ultrasonic thing.

Thanks for the tip!

By the way...
I haven't found a local supplier of quality bulk ink yet, but I can buy refill kits via mail order, and I found a place nearby that sells refilled genuine Canon carts at half the retail price, and with a guarantee (which may be worthless; I'll have to check the details).

 

[pharmacist]

Here is my formula which works great for me:

20 ml isopropanol (isopropyl alcohol)
80 ml distilled water
10 drops of propylene glycol
(optional: 10 drops of concentrated ammonia)

Take a shallow rectangular container (plastic) in which your printhead is properly seated and put a piece of paper tissue on the bottom and pour in the the solution mentioned above. It should be immerged about half a centimeter or less above the level of the tissue. Take care that the electronic contacts are never touched by the liquid. Place the whole thing into the ultrasonic cleaner and put paper towels around the ink inlet holes. Turn of the machine and let it shake for about a minute of 2-3. After that the paper towels will be drenched with ink and the area around the ink inlet holes should be thorougly cleaned/absorbed. Also carefully dry the bottom of your printhead (do no rub on the nozzles !). Place the printhead back into the printer, inktanks etc and do a deep cleaning cycle first. Check the nozzles with a nozzle check printout. If there are still problems, repeat the whole procedure again (eventually with a few drops of ammonia added). If problems don't disappear after the second time of ultrasonic cleaning, your printhead is more than likely defective and should be replaced.

The idea of ultrasonic cleaning is that micro-implosions are created inside the very tiny tubes in the printhead which rapidly and very effectively dissolve dried up dye particles which clog the ink flow towards the nozzles and can not be easily removed by flushing alone. I already tried this on my own IX4000 printhead which was severely clogged and flushing with syringes directly attached on the ink inlet holes didn't help.

Something I forgot to tell: Ultrasonic cleaners wich are actually a bath filled with a liquid are unfit for this purpose (instruments to be cleaned are totally immerged in this liquid, which is totally unfit for printheads !!!). The type I use is actually a rectangular metal bath in which a few cm of water have to be poured in and then the container with the printhead (with cleaning solution underneath it) is placed into it. No contact what so ever is made with the liquid except the print nozzles !

 

[Trigger 37]

Soporose,... Sorry for the delay in getting back to this thread. It has been a very busy week. I like the idea of the ultrasonic cleaning, but like most people I don't have access to one. However, I want to tell you about another success Ive had today. It so happens it is on another i850 printer (like your i865). It is a long story on how this printer got abused so I won't waste your time. The point is the printhead was so clogged that nothing I could do would clean the Black nozzles. The other colors came clean after one full flush of the printhead in the sink will full pressure faucet. After a good drying, all color worked fine except the black would not print even one line. It must have been dried out for a long time. So I did my usual printhead cleaning in the sink, then soak in a mixture of hot water and Windex over night with the water level up over the filter screens. Then a good hot flush in the sink in the morning,..drying with compressed air. At this point I had already cleaned the Purge unit and tested it with Windex to make sure it was working. I re-installed the printhead and load known good ink carts and did 2 Deep cleaning cycles. Then I printed the nozzles pattern and still no black at all. I repeated this cleaning cycle for 3 days, and then I finally got about 10% of the nozzles to print. After that no matter how many cleaning cycles I did, things did not get any better.

By that time the Black ink cart was down to about 1/8" of ink in the reservoir. So I decided to make a cleaning cart out of it. I had already purchased an 8oz bottle of printhead cleaning solution from Atlanticinkjet.com so I use a syringe and filled the Black ink cart with that solution. There was enough black Pigmented ink left to give a real black color so there was not doubt about seeing all nozzles work. Once I loaded the Cleaning ink Cart, I did a deep cleaning cycle to get the solution into the printhead. I had the entire carriage out the printer case and elevated on some boards so I could see the entire process. I also had a lot of folded up paper towels under the purge unit to catch the ink. The deep cleaning cycle sucked out and dropped about 8-10 large drops of ink and that is a lot of ink. Imagine how much ink you would get if you used an eye dropper and squeezed out 8 drops. I printed in "Fast Black" mode an image of a black bar for 1/2 of a page. The very first row this printed had some streaks because of the clogged nozzles, but almost immediately it started printing in full black and it did not appear to have any banding. I then did a nozzle test and about 90% of the nozzles were now working. That is an amazing change from what I had done all day and made very little progress. WOW that cleaning solution must work very fast.

However there were still 10% of the nozzles clogged, so I printed several more half pages of black and got it up to only 5 nozzles were not printing. Then I did some more deep cleaning cycles which sucked a lot of black in out and printer another half page. The next nozzle test only had 2 nozzles not working. I continued the process until all nozzles were working and then from the Service mode I printed the Service Test pattern to prove everything was fine. Once I had that done, I took out the cleaning ink cart and replaced it with a good full black ink cart, did a regular cleaning cycle to get the old cleaning solution out of the printhead and printed half a page and then a nozzle check and finally everything is perfect.

I think I'm going to love this cleaning solution and I'm going to take some old ink carts I have and make then into color cleaning carts. The will have just enough color ink in them to make it easy to see. By the way, the cleaning solution has a much lower viscosity than regular ink, it almost looks like a mixture of Windex and water, but I don't think so. Anyway, when you print half a page with it, the paper really gets wet. Regular black ink has a drying agent in it so that it will dry as fast as possible on paper. My conclusions are; I will still use the water flush process for quick cleaning on a very bad head, but in the future if I see a printhead missing parts of the nozzle test pattern, I will just plug in a cleaning cart and run some cycles until it clears up. I could have possibly saved myself 3 days of messing around.

I would be interested to hear if other people have had the same results with a cleaning solution.

 

[Boatmen58]

i-960 My printer does not get a lot of use but it has finally reached "ink waste tank full" error message stage. I have read the very helpful posts about removing the cover and mechanism that is held down by 3 screws. I have been able to remove two of the screws holding the mechanism down, but the third screw is located under a silver colored cylinder and I can't reach it. Any idea how to get this third screw out?
Thanks for any suggestions
Carolyn

 

[turbguy]

I have disassembled/reassembled my i960 several times (to re-attached purge unit tubing). Is the obscurred screw you mention "way down deep" on the right side of the printer? A thick cable runs above this screw and depending on the color of the jacket, it could like "silver" (mine's grey). If that's the case, just nudge the cable out of the way to reach that deep screw. If not, can you take a photo of the issue and post it?

Typically I treat this deep screw as something to be retreaved during disassembly. A magnetized screwdriver helps get it out once loosened, but it's real easy to drop off the end of the driver as you lift it out. During reassembly, I tape the screw to the screwsdriver to get it started, then remove the tape and drive it tight.

I find it's much harder (fussier) to get the printer back together again, particularly as a newbee. There are two front metal "feet" on the carriage mechanism (toward the paper exit) that have to be slid into slots in the plastic bottom casing as you drop the carriage in and before you re-install the screws, or the TOP plastic cover won't align with the carriage mechanism. AND that thick cable needs attention to stay out of the way of stuff, AND the control button cable needs to be passed through a rectangular hole in the upper plastic cover. Patience, patience.......

Turbguy