MP830 Photo Black

[embguy]

Finally, I got my deck finished. It took twice as long as my estimate. I guess why I am a DIYer... not a professional...

I took out the dye black and yellow rubber washers. Washed and dried them. Put the yellow rubber washer in the dye black slot. Leave the yellow slot without the rubber washer. Did a cleaning. The ink level of the dye black went down first time in months. The yellow ink level went down too. The yellow nozzle check is normal.

I put a plastic wrap on the yellow cartridge outlet. Did a cleaning. Nozzle check shows no yellow. Removed the plastic wrap. Did another cleaning. The yellow came back with only one cleaning.

I am leaving the yellow rubber washer on the dye black slot and watch the performance of the yellow and dye black for the next few months.

ghwellsjr, the experiment works as you expected. The plastic wrap stops the ink. If the purge system is working, doing one cleaning will prime the nozzles. For the experiment situation, there is no clog in the yellow nozzles. Doing one cleaning is enough to prime the nozzles. Are you going to use the plastic wrap as a test for the purge system operation?

 

[leo8088]

I put a plastic wrap on the yellow cartridge outlet. Did a cleaning. Nozzle check shows no yellow. Removed the plastic wrap. Did another cleaning. The yellow came back with only one cleaning.

This is a very dangerous experiment you just did. Had you printed a photo instead of only a nozzle check you would have probably caused your yellow print head burnt out. I lost an i960 print head in a similar situation long time ago. I put a set of empty (no ink in the sponges) in my i960 and did a cleaning cycle. It quickly sucked out all inks in the print head. I forgot I did that and a little while later printed something. The print head was totaled in one shot.

I have never found any problems with those washes for all my Canon printers. In my opinion you really should not need to mess with them. Putting a wrap on an outlet of an ink cartridge, do a cleaning cycle then print is suicide to the print head. Maybe your MP830 print head is different. But I would not do anything like that to my print head no matter if it can survive such abuse.

 

[ghwellsjr]

Note that leo8088's warning only applies if you do more than just a nozzle check, like if you forget to remove the plastic wrap and try to print a full page photo, so don't forget to remove it. A nozzle check activates the nozzles just a tiny bit and there is no danger of burning out a printhead just from doing nozzle checks.

I'm surprised that removing the washer from the yellow port did not get air into the print head. It's hard to know if the plastic wrap allowed air into it but the problem seems to have gone away so that's good. You didn't say, but I'm sure you have put a washer back on the yellow port.

Thanks to Trigger 37, I now know that the easiest and best way to tell if the purge unit is working is simply to put liquid on the purge pads, make sure it doesn't drain away, then close the lid, wait until activity stops, then reopen the lid and see if the liquid had been sucked away.

 

[embguy]

Note that leo8088's warning only applies if you do more than just a nozzle check, like if you forget to remove the plastic wrap and try to print a full page photo, so don't forget to remove it. A nozzle check activates the nozzles just a tiny bit and there is no danger of burning out a printhead just from doing nozzle checks.

Yes, the wrap is off the cartridge. I am here long enough not to print anything, other than nozzle check, if nozzles are blocked.

I'm surprised that removing the washer from the yellow port did not get air into the print head. It's hard to know if the plastic wrap allowed air into it but the problem seems to have gone away so that's good.

I think the PH inlet screen is touching the the foam at the cartridge outlet port to keep the ink flowing into the yellow nozzles. I think the long term effect without good seal will be similar to the dye black.

You didn't say, but I'm sure you have put a washer back on the yellow port.

I put back the rubber washer in the yellow slot. But the dye black is using the yellow rubber washer and vis versa.

Observation:
After washing the rubber washer in warm water, I noticed that the indentation on the rubber washer is less than before washing. May be the warm water "relax" the rubber a little. I am talking about the indentation made by the ink cartridge outlet port on the rubber washer. I think I will include "washing the rubber washers with warm water" as part of the unclogging procedure.

 

[embguy]

Today, I am doing my weekly nozzle check on my printers. My MP830 photo black gave me the same conical shape pattern shown on my the first post of this thread. I did a cleaning cycle. The nozzle check is worse than the first one. This implied that the photo black ink is not flowing from the cartridge to the nozzles. More photo black ink was sucked out from the nozzles during the cleaning cycle.

I am still using the yellow rubber washer on the photo black slot. I am using a new Canon OEM photo black cartridge which has not been refilled.

As I reported one month ago, the photo black ink level went down after I switched the rubber washers. It seems to me that the seal is not there any more. I will try the credit card washer trick that I mentioned recently on another thread.

 

[ghwellsjr]

The trick I learned to distinguish an air leak problem from a clogged print head is after you do a cleaning cycle and a nozzle check, remove the offending cartridge and see if there is ink on the inlet port screen going into the print head. If there is, then you don't have an air leak and you don't have an ink flow problem in the cartridge. Most likely, you have an obstruction in the ink path leading from the inlet port to the nozzles (but not in the nozzles themselves).

See this link again for an ungoing saga of how to deal with this problem:

http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=27783#p27783

 

[embguy]

I did a cleaning cycle and took out the photo black. There was no ink on the inlet screen and the rubber washer was dry as bone. I have air leak problem. I will try to increase the thickness of the rubber washer by putting a home made credit card plastic washer between the print head and the rubber washer. I am using a new Canon OEM CLI-8BK cartridge.

Update 1:
I made a plastic washer out of a gift card (0.5 mm thick). Put it between the PH and the rubber washer. Did a cleaning cycle. My photo black is back. I am crossing my fingers and hoping for a permanent fix!:|

 

[siusiuenen]

What is the forum policy on posting download link for printer service manual? I found the MP830 parts catalog and service manual.

Update:
Anyone looking for MP830 service manual, do a Google search on "Canon_Pixma_Mp830_Complete_Service_Repair_Maintenance_Manual"

Thanks you very much. You know we're here always need those