Is my i960 printhead dead?

[ILcanon]

I am getting only blank output from the printer. The printer goes through all the motions of printing but nothing gets printed to the paper. I have searched through this forum and tried everything that was suggested. Here is a summary of the problem and things I have tried so far:

Brief background:

The i960 has been used for about 4 years now. Never had a clog or any other printing issues. There have been periods of up to 1 month where the printer sat idle but never experienced any clog etc. I did make sure to run a deep clean cycle if the printer sat idle for that long. Now all of a sudden, the printer stopped printing altogether. It still goes through all the motions but only blank paper comes out. There was no gradual deterioration of image or clogging of one nozzle at a time like I have read in several threads here. It just stopped putting ink on paper.

things I have tried to fix this:

* Checked that the cartridges had ink in them. They did. I use the pre-filled ones from inkgrabber (recommended in Neil Slade's web site)
* Put in a fresh set of cartridges just to be sure and ran deep clean cycles.
* Went into the service mode and tried to print EEPROM & nozzle check. No luck still blank sheets coming out.
* Reset the EEPROM data and the waste ink counter as per the instructions found on this forum.
* Used compressed air to force the ink out. Soaked the printhead in windex overnight. Did this 2 nights in a row.
* Cleaned the contacts with rubbing alcohol.
* Ran several deep cleaning cycles again. The ink levels on the tanks are going down but still no ink on paper.
* Even tried printing from different computers just in case (win XP and Win 2K), no luck there either.

In summary, I doubt if the printhead is clogged. I actually don't know if it was ever clogged since I would expect clogging to manifest itself by deterioration of image quality or absence of certain colors. In my case, it went from printing stunning 4x6 photos 3 days earlier to no printing at all. Besides, I would expect some ink to come out now after all the cleaning if there was a clog.

I am out of ideas at this point. Do I need a new printhead? Is there anything else I can try? What if the problem is in the logic card and not the printhead? How do I figure out where the problem is?

Please help.

Thanks

 

[headphonesman]

If the failure to lay ink down was simultaneous across all carts ,I would not suspect clogging. Clogging is usually 1-2 colors at a time and the print starts getting patchy/streaky/fainter etc.

It would appear that the nozzles are either not receiving a signal to fire or are receiving a signal which the head is not able to act upon, i.e the logic board or the head are electrically malfunctioning.

Because of this uncertainty (head or Logic Board ?) I would resist buying a new head only to find it was the logic board. I would strongly consider replacing the Printer with a new model , after all you have had a good run of 4 years with it. Paying for a repair or investigation to finf a fault cause would be uneconomical in my opinion.

You appear to have done the majority of tests open to you already.

The reason the ink has been going down is the Cleaning cycles you have been carrying out which are using ink. I think these are part of a different set of instructions in the logic board (they do not fire the nozzles, just push ink direct through to the Waste Ink Tank (no print to paper).

Sorry , I like to make it a point of honour to keep a printer going but sometimes you have to make a decision that enough is enough, but good luck whatever you decide.

 

[Tin Ho]

There is still a good chance that the ink in all the nozzles have dried out solidly. This can happen if the bottom of the print head was left uncovered for a day or two. I have seen an i960 printed nothing, not a pixel, a few days after it was shut down by pulling the power cord and the print head was still in a position not parked. What you can do now is to take the print head out and soak it in a 1/4" deep distilled water for an hour. Pour some water from the top of the ink intake to fill up the buckets of the ink intakes. If you can get ink inside the intake to drain out from the bottom by soaking the print head will begin to print something again. This will give you an idea if the print head is clogged or is dead completely. If it is not dead you should have a chance to have it recovered. Don't print anything any more except nozzle checks. If you keep printing you will kill the print head.