MP610 suddenly stopped printing on return stroke

[PeterBJ]

I guess you had a cartridge leak? This certainly can damage a printhead. It has happened to me in an iP4200. Some bad quality third party cartridge leaked, and the ink formed a film on the underside of the printhead. Some of this ink crept under the conductors and caused a short circuit that took out exactly half of the yellow nozzles.

Probably the catridge stopped feeding ink to the printhead even if there was ink in the ink chamber? This is ink starvation, and could be caused by problems with the vent. You didn't forget to remove the vent sealing tape?

Both ink leakage and ink starvation can kill a printhead, so it is best to use only OEM Canon cartridges, either new or refilled with a good brand name refill ink.

Your description of the error with PGBK or other band cut at exactly 50% perfectly fits the the description of electronic printhead failure. If this leak also damaged the motherboard I cannot tell.

 

[bluecrabby]

Yes, it seems to fit the description of a bad printhead. However, I only used OEM cartridges! I refilled my original one for years, and only bought my 2nd one when the 'empty when full' problem appeared recently.

If I were to throw in my real cheap two cents, I'd say that the false empty problem caused a starvation issue?

 

[PeterBJ]

I'd say that the false empty problem caused a starvation issue?

Yes that is the symptom of ink starvation

Nozzles burnt out from ink starvation would show a random distribution, it would not affect exactly half a set of nozzles. If you had no leaking of ink, I think the failure of the printhead was just random. It is a rare occurrence, but Canon printheads can fail in this way without apparent reason. If this is the case I think you could replace the printhead with little risk of ruining the new printhead, if you can find one.

I wonder why your Canon OEM cartridges failed? Did you forget to remove the vent sealing tape? I have made that mistake myself, luckily without ill effects. After removing the tape and one or two nozzle cleanings, the printer was OK again.

 

[bluecrabby]

Vent sealing tape? Well, I unwrapped it as specified for installation into the printer... There is the 'Push' button, but it doesn't actually seem meant for pushing.

 

[ghwellsjr]

The "Push" button on the cartridge is for after you put it in the printer, you're supposed to push down on it so it snaps in place.

I concur with the earlier comments that your problem is electrical and will require a new print head. There are a different set of nozzles that are used for each direction of printing. Sometimes Canon print heads fail such that half of the nozzles quit working. I think to tell for sure, you can tell your printer to do a head alignment which is supposed to set the timing of the nozzles for each direction so they print on the same spot. It should fail if the problem is as I suspect.

 

[bluecrabby]

Yes, I did an alignment and the problem didn't get solved. Thanks for the input.

 

[PeterBJ]

bluecrabby wrote:
Vent sealing tape? Well, I unwrapped it as specified for installation into the printer...

If you followed Canon's instructions it should be OK. See this picture from a Canon onscreen manual, and note the little figure "C". This is how the cartridge should look after removing the vent sealing tape. click to enlarge:



I now see in your first post that you refill your cartridges. So what method and inks do you use? If you are using the classic topfill method, it is extremely important that the cartridge is sealed properly after refill, else the cartridge will leak. If ink entered the vent system during refill, it might block the vent and cause ink starvation.

...I discovered that there seemed to be a vacuum issue, and if I pulled out the filler plug to allow air into the reservoir area, that the ink would flow into the sponge and feed the printer again...

This makes me think that the vent was blocked by ink.

I would not buy a new printhead if leaking caused it to fail, but if there was no leak, I would buy one, if a reasonably priced printhead could be found.

 

[bluecrabby]

I use ink I got from a supplier here in Japan called Sanwa Supply. I can't say anything about their quality either way. I use the top refill method with the parts that came with Sanwa's ink.

Your diagnosis of an ink leak sounds very plausible to me. In the past (don't recall exactly when), I had some flow after a refill and had to re-seat the plug. Can the vent be cleaned?

 

[PeterBJ]

Yes, the vent can be cleaned by purging the cartridges, link here: http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=8228 . You could make an adapter as shown in post #1 or use the simpler method in post #4.

When purging the cartridges the sponges in the dye ink cartridges, CLI-8 or BCI-7e, become white or almost white. You cannot get the sponges in the pigment black cartridges, PGI-5 PGBK or BCI-9 PGBK, white. When the color of the sponges has changed from black to a uniform medium grey and the water runs clear from the cartridge, purging is OK.

For drying the cartridges after purging see this: http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=34175#p34175