MX860 cartridge or purge clogged??

[chas045]

I have an mx860. I have been refilling with Hobbicolors, german method for 3 years. Printer gets few pages printed every day or three. In the past I have had some clogs that were solved either by adding some windex to the foam rest pads or by removing the print head and rinsing it under tap water and drying. Over the last two months my success has gone from poor to bad. Before things went completely bad, I was finding that I could get test prints after cleaning that showed good black and good first color bands but consistantly NO lighter color bands. Doesn't this seem diagnostic of some specific problem? Actually, most recently, the black color band didn't show either. Almost imediately after the good dark bands, the colors and begin to fail and I have almost no ink on the page. Does this suggest a purge system failure?

I had an older mp machine that got the dreaded 6a00 and I read a lot about it at the time and purchased triggers repair disk (that I might be able to find) and read some of it. It seemed like a royal pain to do. At that point, I saw my mx860 as a demo at COSTCO and got it for $100 which seemed easier than fooling with the mp machine. My readings on this site turned up some hints that sometimes the purge unit can clog but be cleaned without a tear down. Might this be my problem and is there a semi easy solution? I also see that ink starvation from bad carts could be part of (or all) this. How do I tell. I did have an extra new canon black color cart and it brought the black color band back.

So in short: what does the no secondary color bands indicate and could the purge system be doing me in? Or might I just need new carts.?

 

[Grandad35]

1. Run a regular cleaning cycle and immediately print a nozzle check.
2. Immediately print until the quality drops, then immediately print another nozzle check.
3. Post both nozzle checks.

 

[chas045]

Grandad35, I see you are online. If you see this, would you suggest best method for transmission of printouts. Will a scan work? or do I need to try a photo. I think the prints are going to be very faint with almost nothing on them, but I could be surprised.

 

[chas045]

By the way: another diagnostic point. Most of the time recently, if I see problems and do a clean and nozzle check and hope for better and continue with a second clean and check, the second printout for colors is worse than the first. The black is usually better.

 

[Grandad35]

If you see this, would you suggest best method for transmission of printouts. Will a scan work? or do I need to try a photo. I think the prints are going to be very faint with almost nothing on them, but I could be surprised.

This post tells how to upload images on this site.

Either a scan or photo will work, but it helps if you can adjust the scanner's settings to bring out the colors. I'm not looking for the color as much as whether the nozzle check is clean or if it is missing large sections of nozzles.

By the way: another diagnostic point. Most of the time recently, if I see problems and do a clean and nozzle check and hope for better and continue with a second clean and check, the second printout for colors is worse than the first. The black is usually better.

You're saying that if you run a clean/nozzle check/clean/nozzle check sequence that the colors in the second nozzle check are worse than in the first nozzle check, but that the pigment black will be better? If so, does refilling all of your carts make this situation better/same/worse?

 

[chas045]

Can't be sure about refilling all carts, I am often changing as needed and in this case running out of carts that I think might be working well.

Ok I have run your tests, but I am not familiar on how to transmit it successfully. I attempted a scan but I have updated my computer and it said something about needing to reload the program that handles printer computer interface like scans. I will eventually find the disk for this. I then copied the scan to a usb but that gave me an adobe file which your upload wouldn't take. Hopefully you can rely on my description.

First: I was already having major problems and didn't even expect to see all colors although I expected moderate black color.
I actually got the following results:

Black first: 90 percent poor. I can detect the outline for the outside of the grid but ~30% of ssquares are either gone or faded. I Printed two pages before I reran the nozzle check. I was surprised that the black text actually looked quite readable. The second page was poorer but completely readable. I have seen MUCH worse recently. T he Black second dod not show the bottom of the outline at all and I would guess only 30 % of squares were visable. Almost nothing of the expected color code on the left is showing on either first or second print. If it was supposed to say PBK or something, there is no way to tell.

Both first and second prints show perfect first black, yellow, and majenta bands.

I have been having more trouble with blue anyway. It is the last color to wash out when I have tried running water cleaning. I had not noticed the following effect before but perhaps I just wasn't looking closely.
The first blue is a medium to light smear that extends beyond the normal confines of the band both above and to the right. There is no second or third blue either. There is no blue smear or band in the second print.

There are no second or third cyan or majenta bands at all.

All left hand color codes are in red for both prints except for the first blue which has some blackness to the C

 

[Grandad35]

It's difficult to follow what you are describing, especially since I have no idea of what your nozzle check should look like. Can you take photos and post them?

BTW - the "blue" ink is actually cyan.

 

[chas045]

OK I have a picture. Lets see if I am choosing the right code.

 

[chas045]

To reiterate a few points. Usually my pigment black does not give awful problems like either of the above prints. Usually I am just missing a few sides of grid segments and it gets better with a couple cleanings or perhaps just some printing. One thing I haven't mentioned before. I started refilling with cli8 carts and the #5 whatever pigment carts filled fine. With the 221 series, I have always had trouble with the pigment carts. If I fill as full as I would fill the colors, they overflow so I try to stay below that point but it is hard to see.

Also I want to remind you that until I changed my black color cart to a brand new cart, it had not given a black (grey) band but it has been fine for the last two days that it has been in use. Of course, all I am doing is testing since the printer is close to useless.

All carts were close to full in the above prints.

 

[Grandad35]

Since the M, Y and Photo Black all look OK, those carts are supplying ink to that set of nozzles in sufficient quantity. I am not aware of the construction of the print head, but the specifications give 1, 2 ans 5 picoliter drop sizes. Are the 5pl drops from one head and the 1 and 2 pl drops from another? If the 5 pl and at least some of the smaller drops come from a single set of nozzles, it's almost impossible for the problem to be from a clogged channel, cart ink starvation or a clogged purge unit. If the 1 and 2 pl drops are from a separate set of nozzles, then nothing can be ruled out.

From these 2 nozzle checks alone, the color ink problem could be an electrical problem in the print head or mother board, a clogged purge unit or clogs in the ink channels (in other words, almost anything). The pigment ink check could be an ink starvation from the carts, in addition to the other possibilities.

You stated that the lighter M and C bars disappeared suddenly. This would point to an electrical problem (most likely) or a purge unit problem (less likely).

Search the forum for tests to indicate if the purge unit is working properly.