OLD Canon i860, print head (?) problems, won't print

AABGM

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Hi all!
I have one OLD computer with a Canon i860 printer (yeah, I know, insert various remonstrations to upgrade).
It was starting to show some white lines in draft printing mode but was still OK in standard mode.
A while back I started getting error messages and the red-shaded "operating error" screen. 5 orange blinks = print head.

I found the yellow ink tank was sort of crusty around the outlet/port/the round thing the ink comes out of, whatever it's called. It was a recently purchased tank, was fine when I got it, and with my not-too-frequent printing I'd never had this happen before. I've always used Canon ink.
I cleaned the crusty stuff off the print head and changed the yellow tank.
Still got 5 orange blinks.
I bought a new print head -- Amazon, you can't get OEM from anywhere that I could find (contacted 3 printer repair/dealers).
Still got 5 orange blinks.
I cleaned the contacts.
I ran regular and deep-clean cycles.
I did the service manual reset-things... tried resetting the waste counter and an "EEPROM" initialization (not quite sure if appropriate but initializing something seemed like an OK idea).
When I do the service mode things (manual page 1-16), the "service test print" is extreeeeemely faint and spotty in colour and the black doesn't print at all.
The EEPROM print page, being black, is blank.

I now seem to have got rid of the 5 orange blinks.
However, it still won't print.
The printer makes the appropriate sounds, and acts as though it's printing, but there's no ink on the page at all for black, and colour is faint, incomplete, and full of white lines.
The tanks are all OK and dabbing a kleenex on the outlets shows plenty ink ready to come out. It's just not going through the print head.

I tried putting the old print head back in after the service mode stuff and got 5 orange blinks. I put the new one back and it's not blinking. But it's not printing either.

Someone on Bleeping Computer suggested asking here, so, here I am.
That was long but I read the advice to include as much info as possible, so I hope someone reads all that and maybe has a suggestion.
Thanks!
 

AABGM

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(Perhaps unrelated, but, in the past I had a full waste tank, an electronics shop employee took the printer apart for me and I cleaned all the sponges out (yeah, ick) -- he put it back together and I've had a few more years out of it. Person no longer works there and I don't know how to take it apart myself but would certainly try with good instructions if that had anything to do with it.)
 

PeterBJ

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I bought a new print head -- Amazon, you can't get OEM from anywhere that I could find (contacted 3 printer repair/dealers).
Sadly the printhead from Amazon is not new.- It is a used and most likely defective printhead that has been cleaned to look like new. It is most likely from China, but Amazon doesn't tell.

The QY6-0049 printhead was also used in the popular iP4000 printer and new printheads are not available any more. So I think it is time for a new printer.

When a Canon printhead fails there is a risk that it damages the main board in the printer. A mainboard damaged in this way can damage a new printhead. So replacing the printhead is a gamble and I don't know the odds for success.

If you are lucky and find a working printhead, then druckerchannel.de has an instruction for cleaning the absorbers on I and S model printers. Here is a Google translation to English. If the link to the translation doesn't work you can use Google Translate yourself.
 
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AABGM

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Well, that's discouraging, and yes, the print head might even have said "refurbished", I can't recall, but as you noted, you can't get "new".
So I suppose there's not much point trying to clean the absorbers (thanks for the link) if the print head isn't working. I mean, one problem doesn't relate to the other?
I can't figure out why it makes all the right noises and feeds the paper through but the ink doesn't actually come out of it.
 

PeterBJ

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........I can't figure out why it makes all the right noises and feeds the paper through but the ink doesn't actually come out of it.
That is sadly an often seen failure mode of old Canon printheads. A stamp test can verify that the error is electronic and not caused by an ink blockage.
 

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