I never really thought about my printer much, until it QUIT Working! I guess my "Your out of warranty" chip must have kicked in!!
I have a Canon i960 that I use OA100 ink in from Print Pal. I have printed pics b4, and they came out great as far as I was concerned, but the printer mainly gets used for printing color invoices and B&W docs for the most part for my business.
The problem started when the PM quit printing, and would'nt show up on a test page. That's how I found this wonerful site, and started reading. I found several threads w/similar problems, so I started the trouble shooting process. I first put in a new cart, no good. I removed print head and set on warm tissue, no PM trace. Now I'm getting somewhere. I set the head in 50/50 solution of alcohol and warm water, then rinsed thoroughly in warm water to rinse, and gently blew dry with air. I put it all back together, and all looked OK until I decided to run an alignment page. During the process the PC told me there was an error, and the power lite started flashing with a 5 code, which according to the manual, was a print head error. I reset as instructed and tried again, same thing.
I then decided it may still be clogged, so I rigged up a syringe setup, and pumped warm/hot water thru each tube several times and got water thru each row on the head in equal amounts. Again, put it all back and same 5 flash error. Took head out 1 more time and set on wet towel, and had 6 nice colored lines on footprint. When I pushed down gently, each tube bubbled with ink where the carts go. So in my mind, the head is no longer clogged, but put in unit, my favorite 5 flash error was back.
Now I realize the print head must be defective and will probably need to be replaced,(which I will probably do, because this has been a good printer, and by reading, most of you all like it too)!
I guess what it boils down to is:
Is there anything else for me to check or do to resurrect this head?
Does anyone have a cheap place to get a new one?
Is there a new printer that is going to be as good as this one, since a new head is going to be 1/2 or more of what I paid in the 1st place?
Am I taking a chance on buying a new head and having the same problem immediately, and be out the cost of the head, and need to buy a new printer to boot?
Any thoughts on this subject will be greatly appreciated. I need to act right away cause I CAN'T BILL ANYBODY! Thanks-KD
I have a Canon i960 that I use OA100 ink in from Print Pal. I have printed pics b4, and they came out great as far as I was concerned, but the printer mainly gets used for printing color invoices and B&W docs for the most part for my business.
The problem started when the PM quit printing, and would'nt show up on a test page. That's how I found this wonerful site, and started reading. I found several threads w/similar problems, so I started the trouble shooting process. I first put in a new cart, no good. I removed print head and set on warm tissue, no PM trace. Now I'm getting somewhere. I set the head in 50/50 solution of alcohol and warm water, then rinsed thoroughly in warm water to rinse, and gently blew dry with air. I put it all back together, and all looked OK until I decided to run an alignment page. During the process the PC told me there was an error, and the power lite started flashing with a 5 code, which according to the manual, was a print head error. I reset as instructed and tried again, same thing.
I then decided it may still be clogged, so I rigged up a syringe setup, and pumped warm/hot water thru each tube several times and got water thru each row on the head in equal amounts. Again, put it all back and same 5 flash error. Took head out 1 more time and set on wet towel, and had 6 nice colored lines on footprint. When I pushed down gently, each tube bubbled with ink where the carts go. So in my mind, the head is no longer clogged, but put in unit, my favorite 5 flash error was back.
Now I realize the print head must be defective and will probably need to be replaced,(which I will probably do, because this has been a good printer, and by reading, most of you all like it too)!
I guess what it boils down to is:
Is there anything else for me to check or do to resurrect this head?
Does anyone have a cheap place to get a new one?
Is there a new printer that is going to be as good as this one, since a new head is going to be 1/2 or more of what I paid in the 1st place?
Am I taking a chance on buying a new head and having the same problem immediately, and be out the cost of the head, and need to buy a new printer to boot?
Any thoughts on this subject will be greatly appreciated. I need to act right away cause I CAN'T BILL ANYBODY! Thanks-KD