Observations on PGI-5 usage ...

[jru]

Hi everyone,

I had some observations as I went through my first complete clogging of my pgi-5 cartridge, which I noticed by the absence of the complete pgi-5 part of the nozzle check as seen below:


nozzle check with clogged pgi-5: [notice that the pgi-5 part of the pattern is completely missing! ]



After repeated cycles of putting drops of distilled water on the pgi-5 printhead screen as well as the 2 foam park pads, followed by a pgi-5 clean cycle and then nozzle checks, it began to clear up as seen below:

stage1 clearing:


stage 2 clearing:


When it did not seem like more cleaning/nozzle prints was helping, I left several drops of distilled water on the pgi-5 printhead screen as well as on the 2 foam park pads and let it sit overnight. The following moring, I powered on the printer, did a pgi-5 clean cycle and printed the nozzle check and the pgi-5 pattern was completely cleared.

Completely cleared:



Here's what I found interesting: When the pgi-5 cartridge was completely clogged (so that no part of the pgi-5 pattern appeared in the nozzle check) I unknowingly printed out a web page with text on PLAIN PAPER setting. The text appeared with no streaking, but much lighter (almost grey).

That seems to be saying that the text was printed with cli-8 black, (or a mixture of the other cli-8 cartridges) BUT THAT THE REASON IT PRINTED LIGHTER, ALMOST GREY, INSTEAD OF DARK BLACK IS THAT NORMALLY WHEN PRINTING TO PLAIN PAPER, A COMBINATION OF PGI-5 AND CLI-8 CARTRIDGES ARE USED. (i.e. it printed lighter because the pgi-5 contribution was missing).

I was under the impression that black text on plain paper was using only pgi-5 (or only cli-8 colors) but it seems to be using a combination of both.

Here's a comparison of how the text printed: On the left is the lighter text printed with completely clogged pgi-5; on the right is the darker text printed when the pgi-5 was completely unclogged:

By the way, I found a checkbox in my canon scanner software called "DESCREEN" which removes the weird pattern that appears in the black box of the nozzle check pattern. Here's what the help screen says about it:

Improving image quality
On the Scanner sheet click the Descreen check box to switch on moir reduction to improve the overall quality of the image.

A huge THANK YOU to ghwellsjr who posted his unclogging without removing printhead idea at:
http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=17937#p17937

Appreciations also for this great forum...

 

[stratman]

Your experience mimics my recent PGI-5 clog as well. (http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=3520)

The text started printed less black and more gray. A nozzle check was good for all the CLI-8 colors but the entire PGI-5 section was missing.

I had been using my first ever refilled PGI-5 cartridge the past two weeks. I was using Hobbicolors pigment ink. What about you?

I swapped in a new OEM Canon PGI-5, did 2 regular cleanings, then a deep cleaning, then a regular cleaning, and finally another deep cleaning. Nozzle check is nearly perfect - some banding in the vertical black bars alongside the PGBK - and only very large text fonts still show some residual banding or striping (which looks like a complete missfire of a nozzle, but appears to be improving).

 

[jru]

Hi Stratman,

Thanks for sharing your experience. Yes it does sound very similar.
In my case I do know that my pgi-5 cart had run dry. When I checked it, the reservoir was completely empty. And I suspect that I had been printing a while like that.

Now that the distilled water has cleared my clog, I will monitor it more carefully to see how the purged refilled pgi-5 cart does. Yes, I have been using hobbicolors ink.

While I was trying to solve my clog, I did try 3 different purged & refilled pgi-5 carts and the nozzle check printout was the same, suggesting it was not the carts. (And when I blew into the vent hole at the top, ink dripped out, further suggesting it was not the carts).

So my sense is that any pgi-5 cart which is even partially dried out should be purged out, and refilled after flushing as much water out as possible -- but BEFORE it has dried out completely.

I can see after flushing, that the sponges in the pgi-5 cart, though flushed of bulk ink, still retain much of the pigment. They do not come out white like the dye based cli-8 carts. This seems to just be staining of the sponge, since they do seem to flow well once refilled. However since pigment ink does seem to be more sensitive to clogging, my thinking is to leave the cart slightly damp after flushing, before refilling. (I use a vacuum to remove most of the water... see my earlier post at http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=21489#p21489 ).

Can I suggest that we keep an eye on our pgi-5 carts and report back how they are flowing?
This info can likely be of use to others as well.

Thanks again!

 

[Tin Ho]

Jru and Stratman, I believe the clog of your printers was cased by refilling a dried up PGI5 cartridge resulting the viscosity of the mixed old/fresh ink too high. I ran into exactly the same problem from refilling a PGI5 bought from ebay and refilled without purging it first.

This forum had some discussion about this before. I believe I learned a trick about unclogg the PGI5 print head here too. Basically just purge and refill your PGI5 with a dye black ink. Install this cartridge into your printer. Print a color chart that has a long bar of black such as a purge page available from here:

http://inksupply.helpserve.com/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=13&nav=0,2

Do a cleaning cycle before printing it. This trick has worked for me very well. The clog was completely cleared up after printing this purge pape a few times. I drained my PGI5 cart and refilled it again with my black pigment ink. It has since worked fine for many refills. I now periodically purge my PGI5 cart.

 

[jru]

Tin Ho,
Thanks for this tip.
My pgi5 cartridge had unknown to me run dry, while I had continued printing -- and I am now pretty sure that was the cause of my clog.
Repeatedly placing drops of distilled water on the pgi5 screen entrance of the printhead as well as the park pads along with doing clean/nozzle checks --- and letting it sit overnight, completely cleared it up.
But i will certainly keep your tip in mind ...

 

[stratman]

JRU and Tin Ho:

Thanks for the advice. I will be purging a couple of PGI-5 empties and refill while still a little damp.

Do you think I should re-use the ink left in the nearly filled "bad" cartridge or should I dump it down the drain and just begin again with "fresh" pigment ink? There must be at least 15-18 ml of reclaimable ink in the "bad" cartridge.

Tin Ho -- I downloaded the zip file with the purge charts. Would the one that has a solid large rectangle of black only be good for just purging the PGI-5 cartridge? All the CLI-8 cartridges are working perfectly and never presented as a problem.

 

[Tin Ho]

Stratman, you are welcome. I believe you can reuse the remaining ink in the reservoir tank. I think the dried up pigment in the sponge had become less mobile, which contributed to the problem in addition to my theory that the viscosity of the mixed ink was increased. It could be either one of them or both. Because the cartridge worked fine after it was purged and refilled again I could only imagine that something went wrong when fresh ink is mixed with old ink in the sponge. I now believe that it is beneficial to purge PGI5 ink cartridges before refilling. I noticed that the printed text quality seems to be better too when the cartridge was purged before it was refilled.

You are right that you only need to print black, not all other dye colors when printing the purge page. I think you can resize the purge page to half a page. It does not need to be a full page of black to do the trick. It will be interesting to see the print that shows how the clog gets cleared up. It will show significant missing of pixels or banding on the top and clear up near the middle toward the bottom. I printed it a few times after seeing it did the trick.

It's true that CLI8 cartridges seem to be fine without purging. I did not purge my CLI-8s bought from eBay at the same time. They have worked since the first refill. But it is probably a good idea to purge them once in a while.

 

[stratman]

Tin Ho:

Hate to waste the ink in the spngeless side good money thrown away!

Thanks for the comments.

 

[Tin Ho]

I believe you can still use it. I noticed that if I do not purge my PGI5 cart I could fill up the reservoir tank very quickly. That means the ink does not spread into the sponge much. That's already a sign telling me that the sponge is in a questionable state already. If I do purge the cartridge then ink will spread into the sponge very obviously because it takes much more ink to fill up the reservoir tank. That tells me that the sponge absorbs ink quickly. It means ink will flow fairly freely too. I would reuse the ink. The only ink lost is whatever remained in the sponge.

 

[atlascopy]

If you do not get the clog out with distilled water you might want to try a few drops of ammonia. Don't over do it. If you want a diluted source use a few drops of Windex brand glass cleaner. (Windex has a small amount of ammonia). Don't inject this into your cartridges, only into the screen. Canon inks are notorious for clogging print heads.

Sponges in the cartridges can dry up too. Even though you refill them regularly. The reason is because the drying agents used in Canon OEM inks infiltrates the sponge and makes it rock hard eventually. You can sometimes revive a dried out sponge by injecting a small amount of ammonia into the cartridge but it's best to purge a cartridge after trying this.