Pixma 3000

[Fano]

Some funny goings on with my Pixma 3000 again this week.
It had worked exemplarily for the last 3 months.
However now there are problems with the Cyan colour.
It prints correctly for the first few photos but then the cyan colour is no longer printed.
If I take out the cartridges and reseat them ,it will print correctly for a few more sheets before going bad again.
Everything has a very reddish tint, as only Yellow and Magenta are being printed.
the print quality is fine its just the cyan is absent.
I have cleaned the printhead in warm water and isopryl ethanol but that hasnt alleviated the problem.
I was previously using Smartjet and Projet compatible cartridges and I found these to be of good quality.
I recently started using compatible cartridges from 7 Day Shop.
These cartridges do not seem to be of good quality.
The sponges are very poor and some of them didnt work at all.
There is very little ink on the contacts between the cartridges and the print head.
Either the printhead is damaged or these cartridges are rubbish.
I tried some older brand cartridges I had;these worked initially buy failed near the end of the cartridge.
I tried a Print Head alignment but this gives an error, but the head seems to be aligned correctly.
I've prob used about 13 sets of colour cartridges on this printer,prob 6 Black.
This is my second Pixma 3000.
The first one suffered the same problems and had its printhead replaced which solved the problem.
I've looked after this printer well and it hasnt suffered any bangs or falls.
Is the problem the result of the cartridges,the printhead or a combination of the 2 ?

 

[Osage]

Sound like to me that your cyan cartridge is not feeding correctly---over time you get enough ink through the sponge to get some ink to the ink outlet---you print something depleteting ink faster than the sponge lets ink through.---no ink to the printhead means nothing to absorb the energy of a nozzle fire--resulting in possible printhead damage.

Whats unclear in your post is have you replaced this cartridge with a KNOWN good cartridge? Have you made sure the air vent is open?--could be the problem also.-----and also shows you why you should stick with third party cartridges well reviewed on these forums.--but if you say the first photo off is good, thats a hopeful sign your printhead is not damaged.-------step one is chuck that cyan cartridge.--at first sign of improper feeding.-----beating a dead horse is a fool's game. But a clog could also exist below the ink outlet nozzle on the printhead itself.

Even OEM cartridges are sometimes bad.

 

[Fano]

Whats unclear in your post is have you replaced this cartridge with a KNOWN good cartridge? Have you made sure the air vent is open?--could be the problem also.

I used about 6 of the 7 Day Shop Cyan cartridges and evertone of them was the same,only printed for a few sheets,some didnt work at all.
I only had one cartridge of the Good Smartjet type left and that worked perfectly.
Its used up now so I only have the 7 Day Shop type left.
I'll have to get another good brand cartridge to check.
What is the Air vent ?
Should I open the vent above the sponge ?
Sometimes the Yellow and Magenta cartridges seem to block but this is remedied by just reseating the cartridges .
They work fine now but the Cyan is the problem.

 

[fotofreek]

Continuing to use a brand of cartridge that has proven to feed poorly won't solve the printing color shift problem, and it will risk burning out your printhead in the jets that aren't feeding. You need to purchase known good quality carts or get good quality inks and refill OEM or other good quality carts. Look through this forum for suggestions regarding better quality products.

 

[Osage]

Yes, you should uncover the air vent which is usually located at the back end of the
sponge section on top. Its usually covered by a small piece of tape or plastic you pull away--often it says pull. As the ink goes out, the air vent allows pressure to equalise in the catridge. With the air vent covered you get a vacume and more ink can't flow out. If air can't get though the air vent the only way air can get in to break the vacume is through the ink outlet hole.--which is why reseating your cartridge worked for a short time.

The air vent is taped over to prevent ink from flowing out the air vent in the event the cartridge is turned upside down.---which could happen in shipping or storage. Once the cartridge is in your printer the only way to turn it upside down is by turning the whole printer upside down. Plus the tape also helps prevent ink evaporation prior to the time the cartridge is used.

Pull the tape off the air vent on your cyan cartridge---------and ALL your other cartridges also when they are placed in the printer. You may find things work much much better-----and your printhead won't get damaged.---and you will get to use most of the ink in a cartridge.

But if you have removed the tape already, I don't advise doing anything else to enlarge the air vent------then the advice of fotofreak is 100% correct. Don't use that brand of cartridge if you experience problems or you risk damaging the printer. Lots of known good brands on this forum.----quit printing until you have known good cartridges.

 

[Fano]

Cheers for the advice Guys.
I have soaked the Printhead in a small amount of Windolenene and dried it on Kitchen Towel.
It is nice and clean now.
I have also removed the tape from the top of the cartridges.
In the case of the Cyan I had removed it already but it doesnt hurt to do so on all cartridges.
I will test the printer tomorrow morning and report back.

 

[fotofreek]

About the tape over the air vent - BCI-3 and BCI-6 carts have an air vent over the sponge area that connects to a surface "maze" that goes almost to the end of cart top. Most of the carts, OEM included, come with tape that covers the vent and almost all of the maze at the top. There is a small part of the maze exposed near the end that permits air to travel through the maze to the vent hole although the vent and almost all of the maze is covered. The tape that you are instructed to remove on OEM and most other carts exposes only the very end of the maze to the air - just enough to permit air to travel along the maze channel to the vent hole. MIS virgin carts come without tape on the top. They do have a separate label that looks like the one the OEM carts come with. I called MIS tech support and asked if the label was supposed to be attached to the top to cover the vent hole and most of the maze with just the end of the maze exposed. They told me that I didn't have to put the label on top. I left it off and the carts worked just fine. Rob had problems with some Arrow carts some time ago. They didn't feed well. I had purchased a dozen Arrow carts and took the tape off completely. Turns out that there were two different designs on the top. Some had smaller vent holes than others and the maze was a different configuration. I used a push pin to enlarge the smaller holes to the size of the larger ones and left the tape off. They seem to be working just fine.

This whole long-winded post, to get to the point, is that the air vent must permit enough air to enter the cart when there is a demand from the print head for ink to be pulled out of the cart. Too much, however, might permit the cart to leak.

 

[Fano]

Update:
I put the cleaned Printhead back in the printer and inserted the new cartridge.
I used a 7 Day Shop Cartridge for the Yellow and Magenta and a new Canon Cyan.
The result was the same as before ,Cyan ran out quickly.
I then decided to switch the Cyan and Magenta cartridges around.
Result was that the Cyan came out perfectly thru the Magenta Head whereas the Magenta did not come out thru the Cyan Nozzles.
I then switched the Cyan Canon cartridge for a new 7 Day Shop OEM cartridge and the cartridge printed perfectly.
Hence I have deduced that the cartridges seem to work fine.
The Cyan head is not working properly.
Very little ink is on the Cyan contact .
It is either blocked or else it is malfunctioning.
This is my second Pixma 3000,the first one suffered the exact same problem,a failing Cyan head and I had to send it off for repair twice.
It is evident that the printhead is the problem and no the cartridges as I first thought.
I rinsed the printhead out under warm water recently and the head may have been completely submerged.
Is this ok;i.e are the electronics water resistant or may I have damaged the head ?
I will try another cleaning with windolene and hope that the problem is remedied.

 

[digitalartist71]

oh man, i am new here...but Fano... you are brave.

i probably wouldn't submerge the entire head in liquid. and if so... maybe at least let it completely dry and blow it out so the water doesn't short out the connections when u put it back in the printer.

and swapping colors to test it....hmmmmm..... that may taint the colors now??? may have purple ink now in the head?

ok....i am having this same problem and been reading alot of people also have with these new pixma machines...i have a S600 and never had problems like this , and to say to quickly!

i have had the ip3000 since June of 2005.

the black will not print now at all.... swapped ink carts...still nothing... also pulled head....used warm wtare to clean nozzles up a bit ....nothing...CMY still fine...but K 9black)... nothing.

i am going to look now for the posts about cleaning the heads out and go from there...i saw a post the other day here about that and it solved the problem.

this should work...considering i have cleaned out SOLVENT XAAR heads from a digital wide format Arizona $80,000 printer using 3M solvents (highly potent and strong in comparison to water based systems!). these heads had been setup (big no no).

hopefully i can get the head cleaned and continue printing...hopefully it isn't true about the ip3000 heads are inferior to the S600 one.

ps... at christmas my fiance printed about 300 4x6 photo cards with it.... so am wondering if a counter has rendered it non-functional or what.

Tim

 

[Fano]

i probably wouldn't submerge the entire head in liquid. and if so... maybe at least let it completely dry and blow it out so the water doesn't short out the connections when u put it back in the printer.

and swapping colors to test it....hmmmmm..... that may taint the colors now??? may have purple ink now in the head?

I put the head under a tap ,it doesnt seem to have effected the electronics of the head anyway.
The colours were tainted for a bit but they went back to normal pretty quickly ;after a few nozzle checks ,so thats Ok.
I must buy some more Windolene tomorrow as I used it all up !
How much Windolene do I need to use to soak the printhead ?
The Pixmas are a good printer in my experience but very temperamental,they break down alot.