PIXMA PRO-10 Head Clog

[LargoUsagi]

I contacted Canon and end up buying a new print head. Worked straight away.

This is exactly what I did, dropped it in, moved the carts over did a nozzle check and was off to the races.

I talked to cannon on the phone about storage and maintenance.

The big thing I did on pulling mine out of storage was just went straight to a print that was heavy on the red, and fried the nozzle because it was clogged, I should have done cleaning cycles, deep cleaning and I was able to get the other channels flowing from 0 to great after 2 years.

The other part was leave it up and print a nozzle check once a month if its not being used and it should be fine according to cannon, its recommended that if you are on that month cycle to do a head check and potential cleaning before a real print and ideally it is being used every few days.

There is no officially supported long term storage for the print head but there was some sort of hint towards a cleaning process and air tight bags, doing more research on the subject I also heard of some software that can trigger a nozzle check once a month. It seems easier to just go with a monthly nozzle check and use the printer more frequently, even if it is printing a light text document I would usually throw at the laser printer.

 

[The Hat]

it should be fine according to cannon,

It seems not even Canon know how to look after their own products.

Whether you use your printer daily, weekly or monthly you should always start with a nozzle check first before commencing any serious printing, not even a test page.

The printer is best left off when not in use and can be stored with a cloth or plastic covering over the whole printer, it can be safely stored that way for months, but always remember to wake it up gently and not expect it to print straight out of hibernation..

P.S. if you intend a longer sabbatical then remover the head and carts and store them in a sealed plastic bag..

 

[LargoUsagi]

I should clarify, when I said it should be fine, that monthly nozzle check should keep any serious clogs from forming, not that it will print perfect if you do only that, that was cannons suggestion as the long term inactivity to prevent clogs that would land me in the replace a print head again, cleaning cycles and nozzle checks should restore it to working order so long as there is some level of monthly maintenance to ensure that the nozzles are all clear.

The recommendation was to run nozzle checks more frequently, more of a weekly thing as clogging would be extremely unlikely at that point, and I was told to run a nozzle check before any print if it had sat idle for more than 3 days, remediate if necessary.

They did also say that a nozzle check before any printing is highly recommended and should only be excluded if you had just finished a prior print and where running multiple prints back to back.



I got curious and downloaded the On-screen Manual for the Pro-10 and didn't find anything about nozzle checks before printing, only as a service step, seems like something they should have included in the instructions. Seems like a major part of the print process on higher end printers and after browsing here and experiencing my fuck up, its clearly not a well known given.