l_d_allan
Fan of Printing
Summary:
Nozzle check on Canon Pro 9000-2 for CLI-8M-Magenta is very, very, very faint. Worked fine three days earlier. Clogged heads? Print-head? Bad refilling technique? What to try next?
More info ... sorry for the long post:
On Saturday, I did a nozzle check, and then printed about 20 letter size glossy prints on my 9000-2. AOK. Borderless prints on Kirkland paper looked great to my less than discerning eye.
On Tuesday, I had about 20 more prints I wanted to make. My practice is to do a nozzle check before a batch of prints, just to check that all is ok. On plain copy paper, the CLI-8M Magenta looked to not be printing at all. Drat. All the other 7 colors looked normal.
Following is the steps in order I did from that point to try to diagnose what is going on, and how to fix.
* I did several more nozzle checks, with the rectangle where the Magenta should be still appearing blank on plain copy paper.
* I have kept previous nozzle checks around as a "base-line". A normal Magenta nozzle check rectangle for a 9000-2 is slightly darker than the PhotoMagenta rectangle. All eight rectangles are somewhat light during a normal 9000-2 nozzle check.
* I did a nozzle check on a glossy sheet of paper and looked very closely at it. The Magenta seems to be there, but it is very, very, very faint. Barely discernible. If you weren't looking for it, you would think it wasn't there. There seems to be a very faint difference between the boundary of the Magenta rectangle and the glossy paper.
* At one point, I'm wasn't convinced there was actually a Magenta rectangle, as sometimes we mistakenly see what we are looking for and expecting to see. I took the glossy print outside, and can barely make out the Magenta rectangle.
* I've been refilling the Canon oem CLI-8M Magenta cart with OCP ink, and my records indicate that this cart has been refilled twice. It hadn't been purged. I bought it new from Office Depot about a month ago.
* This same cart had been used to print the 20 letter size prints on Saturday. It still was about half full.
* After printing Saturday, I left the printer on, in "ready to go" state for the next batch of printing. It hadn't been turned off, and the USB cable was still connected.
* Swapped in another CLI-8M cart that had been refilled and was full. Same result ... very faint Magenta nozzle check.
* Did regular cleaning cycle and then nozzle check. Same result ... very faint Magenta nozzle check.
* Did deep cleaning cycle and then nozzle check. Same result ... very faint Magenta nozzle check.
* Printed a 4x6" test print of a Kodak-like test image ... looked terrible with Magenta obviously missing. I don't want to do much if any real printing to avoid damage to the print head.
* Swapped in another original Canon oem cart that was purchased from Office Depot and still had some original Canon ink in it ... never refilled. Same very faint Magenta nozzle check. I think this rules out the cartridge being the problem.
* Switched to Canon iP4500 inkjet which also uses CLI-8 carts. All three CLI-8M Magenta carts worked fine and provided normal nozzle checks. I think this further rules out the cartridge being the problem.
* I'm barely familiar with the Print-Driver + Maintenance + Print-Head-Alignment choice. I recall doing it once during initial setup about 5 months ago, and it reported ok.
* I did the Alignment, and only one set of 6.01 colors showed up ... my guess would be Black ok, Orange/Red ok, Photo-Magenta ok, One-line-of-Magenta bad. Green ok, PhotoCyan ok, and Cyan ok. No Yellow, oddly enough. An error was reported about "unable to do alignment", with a possibility of clogged head (didn't write down exact wording) and suggesting a Manual Alignment.
* Did a Manual Alignment via Custom Settings, and left values at zero. This time, the alignment made it all the way through. Columns A-Green, B-Red/Orange, C-PhotoCyan, D-Black, E-PhotoCyan, F-Cyan, and H-Yellow looked ok, but column G for Magenta was definitely off. Only about 5% to 10% of the number of lines appeared as the other colors. All colors were definitely darker than when a nozzle check was done.
[Edit] In hindsight based on advice in following posts, should not have done Alignments described above with flawed nozzle check.
* Another nozzle check ... same very faint Magenta. Yellow and Red carts reporting Low. Giving up for now.
I'm very unfamiliar with Canon prints-heads and what they are supposed to look like. About a week ago I figured out how to take the print-head out of the printer, just for curiousity. I briefly glanced at it, and put it back in. I probably made 50+ letter size prints since then, all fine.
I did take the print-head out of the printer and took a closer look at it since the problem started happening. Nothing seemed abnormal, but I don't know what to look for. There was some damp ink smears along the bottom of the print head where it fits in the carrier.
I'm baffled that the malfunction was sudden. The printer worked fine on Saturday. As far as I can tell, nothing changed between Saturday and Tuesday, and then the nozzle check for Magenta failed. All the same carts were in the printer. It also seems odd that the nozzle check Magenta rectangle is very, very, very faint, rather than being completely absent, or broken up with streaks.
I'd very much appreciate suggestions on further steps to try to diagnose out what is going on, and how to possibly fix. I'm pretty sure the printer is still under warranty (need to check for sure), so I am hesitant to try too much. I'm not clear whether a clogged head is considered a warranty repair, or the owner's responsibility.
I'll contact Canon tech support, but thought I would also ask the experts on this forum. I'm hoping there is a local authorized Canon repair facility, so I don't have to ship the printer to Canon.
Thanks.
Nozzle check on Canon Pro 9000-2 for CLI-8M-Magenta is very, very, very faint. Worked fine three days earlier. Clogged heads? Print-head? Bad refilling technique? What to try next?
More info ... sorry for the long post:
On Saturday, I did a nozzle check, and then printed about 20 letter size glossy prints on my 9000-2. AOK. Borderless prints on Kirkland paper looked great to my less than discerning eye.
On Tuesday, I had about 20 more prints I wanted to make. My practice is to do a nozzle check before a batch of prints, just to check that all is ok. On plain copy paper, the CLI-8M Magenta looked to not be printing at all. Drat. All the other 7 colors looked normal.
Following is the steps in order I did from that point to try to diagnose what is going on, and how to fix.
* I did several more nozzle checks, with the rectangle where the Magenta should be still appearing blank on plain copy paper.
* I have kept previous nozzle checks around as a "base-line". A normal Magenta nozzle check rectangle for a 9000-2 is slightly darker than the PhotoMagenta rectangle. All eight rectangles are somewhat light during a normal 9000-2 nozzle check.
* I did a nozzle check on a glossy sheet of paper and looked very closely at it. The Magenta seems to be there, but it is very, very, very faint. Barely discernible. If you weren't looking for it, you would think it wasn't there. There seems to be a very faint difference between the boundary of the Magenta rectangle and the glossy paper.
* At one point, I'm wasn't convinced there was actually a Magenta rectangle, as sometimes we mistakenly see what we are looking for and expecting to see. I took the glossy print outside, and can barely make out the Magenta rectangle.
* I've been refilling the Canon oem CLI-8M Magenta cart with OCP ink, and my records indicate that this cart has been refilled twice. It hadn't been purged. I bought it new from Office Depot about a month ago.
* This same cart had been used to print the 20 letter size prints on Saturday. It still was about half full.
* After printing Saturday, I left the printer on, in "ready to go" state for the next batch of printing. It hadn't been turned off, and the USB cable was still connected.
* Swapped in another CLI-8M cart that had been refilled and was full. Same result ... very faint Magenta nozzle check.
* Did regular cleaning cycle and then nozzle check. Same result ... very faint Magenta nozzle check.
* Did deep cleaning cycle and then nozzle check. Same result ... very faint Magenta nozzle check.
* Printed a 4x6" test print of a Kodak-like test image ... looked terrible with Magenta obviously missing. I don't want to do much if any real printing to avoid damage to the print head.
* Swapped in another original Canon oem cart that was purchased from Office Depot and still had some original Canon ink in it ... never refilled. Same very faint Magenta nozzle check. I think this rules out the cartridge being the problem.
* Switched to Canon iP4500 inkjet which also uses CLI-8 carts. All three CLI-8M Magenta carts worked fine and provided normal nozzle checks. I think this further rules out the cartridge being the problem.
* I'm barely familiar with the Print-Driver + Maintenance + Print-Head-Alignment choice. I recall doing it once during initial setup about 5 months ago, and it reported ok.
* I did the Alignment, and only one set of 6.01 colors showed up ... my guess would be Black ok, Orange/Red ok, Photo-Magenta ok, One-line-of-Magenta bad. Green ok, PhotoCyan ok, and Cyan ok. No Yellow, oddly enough. An error was reported about "unable to do alignment", with a possibility of clogged head (didn't write down exact wording) and suggesting a Manual Alignment.
* Did a Manual Alignment via Custom Settings, and left values at zero. This time, the alignment made it all the way through. Columns A-Green, B-Red/Orange, C-PhotoCyan, D-Black, E-PhotoCyan, F-Cyan, and H-Yellow looked ok, but column G for Magenta was definitely off. Only about 5% to 10% of the number of lines appeared as the other colors. All colors were definitely darker than when a nozzle check was done.
[Edit] In hindsight based on advice in following posts, should not have done Alignments described above with flawed nozzle check.
* Another nozzle check ... same very faint Magenta. Yellow and Red carts reporting Low. Giving up for now.
I'm very unfamiliar with Canon prints-heads and what they are supposed to look like. About a week ago I figured out how to take the print-head out of the printer, just for curiousity. I briefly glanced at it, and put it back in. I probably made 50+ letter size prints since then, all fine.
I did take the print-head out of the printer and took a closer look at it since the problem started happening. Nothing seemed abnormal, but I don't know what to look for. There was some damp ink smears along the bottom of the print head where it fits in the carrier.
I'm baffled that the malfunction was sudden. The printer worked fine on Saturday. As far as I can tell, nothing changed between Saturday and Tuesday, and then the nozzle check for Magenta failed. All the same carts were in the printer. It also seems odd that the nozzle check Magenta rectangle is very, very, very faint, rather than being completely absent, or broken up with streaks.
I'd very much appreciate suggestions on further steps to try to diagnose out what is going on, and how to possibly fix. I'm pretty sure the printer is still under warranty (need to check for sure), so I am hesitant to try too much. I'm not clear whether a clogged head is considered a warranty repair, or the owner's responsibility.
I'll contact Canon tech support, but thought I would also ask the experts on this forum. I'm hoping there is a local authorized Canon repair facility, so I don't have to ship the printer to Canon.
Thanks.