Please help diagnose my nozzle check pattern and purge for IP3000

tomballpkr

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I am having a problem with my Canon Pixma IP3000 printer. This printer uses 1 3eBK, 1 6C, 1 6M, and 1 6Y cartridge, no photo cartridges.

Pages normally look OK, but when I print photos they come out with a green tinge. When I use the nozzle check utility, the 2nd Magenta line doesn't print and some of the boxes on the left that should be gray/black look green. I have researched on this site and others and can't find any references to this type of problem. Since there is only 1 Magenta cartridge and nozzle and the top magenta nozzle check pattern works, could this still be a head clog? I have tried cleaning it and it made no difference. I am puzzled as to why there are 2 Magenta and 2 Cyan nozzle check patterns. A purge printout looks great for all colors

Attached are my nozzle check pattern and a color purge printout.

Any insight would be appreciated.

Thanks, JK

Nozzle Check:
print1.jpg


Color Purge:
print2.jpg
 

ghwellsjr

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My two printers, which use the same print head, include the same cartridges as yours plus the photo black. The print head has six adjacent bands of nozzles (not counting the larger pigment black band of nozzles). The nozzle check prints six color stripes (one more than yours for the photo black). I conclude that there are indeed separate nozzles for the lighter cyan and magenta stripes. Can you confirm that your print head has at least five adjacent bands of nozzles? (It's possible that the iP3000 uses the same head as the iP4000 with the photo black disabled in which case you may have six adjacent bands.)

If this is in fact the case, then your problem could be caused by a mechanical clog of the feed for the light magenta nozzles but it could also be an electrical problem. I don't know how you could tell which was the problem. Did you use ammonia to clean the nozzles?

In any case, I don't think the fact that one of the magenta nozzle checks works correctly implies that the other one should also work.

[NOTE: I have learned my lesson about using ammonia. I now use just Windex (with ammonia). Read the following link for more information:

http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=1396
]
 

tomballpkr

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My head has 5 adjacent color nozzles and then a larger black nozzle. I can see from the ink oozing out that there is 1 Y, 2 C, and 2M. So maybe you are right, and one is clogged and not the other. I assumed that there would just be a single magenta nozzle since there is a single cartridge. After all, I don't have a light-magenta cartridge. Maybe the nozzle size is different. Whatever the reason, I'll try to clean it again and post the results.
 
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