Print head had deep gash when I took it out of printer

[Druidia]

Hi!

I have a couple of old Canon inkjet printers that I still maintain because they're so ink-cost effective (well, at least the i550 is).

My other old Canon printer is the i450. I just cleaned the print head last Dec. 2006 (took it out and sprayed it with distilled water, soaked in water again, dried for several days before putting back in printer).

Black and color were printing perfectly after the cleaning I did. By mid-February, I noticed that the color inks were not printing completely. I just assumed that I must be running low on color ink. So I changed the color ink but the printer still wasn't printing color completely.

Thinking that the nozzles could be clogged, I took out the print head to clean it. I rinsed off the ink inside the head and on the underside by spraying with distilled water. That was when I noticed a deep gash beside the color ink nozzle. That gash wasn't there when I put in the print head last Dec. 2006.

Here's what the gash looks like:
(Sorry, that's the clearest closeup shot I could take with my dig cam & rigged up closeup lenses.)

My print head is obviously useless/trash now. I am just curious as to what could have caused the gash while the print head was inside the printer. I'm thinking that would help me prevent the same thing happening to my other inkjet printers. The underside of the print head never came in contact with anything hard (just the spray of water from my spray bottle) so I'm at a loss to figure out what happened to it. There doesn't seem to be anything protruding or sharp, along the path (inside the printer) that the print head moves along on, that could have created the deep gash.

The sides of the gash look burnt/melted. Does this indicate that that portion of the print head heated up? Why? A short circuit?

Anyone encountered/seen a printer head with a gash that looked like this?

Thanks.

Dru

 

[hpnetserver]

Perhaps there was an electric short in the print head that caused the circuit to burn out like that. You probably did not do anything wrong. It is just that the time has run out for the print head.

 

[panos]

Maybe a paper clip or staple

 

[Grandad35]

Maybe a paper clip or staple

That makes the most sense - this looks like mechanical damage from something being dragged across the print head.

 

[mikling]

This is an example of an abused head with burnt markings.

I can't see the details of yours but check to see if there is any similarity.

The printer that this was removed from proceeded to destroy another good head placed in it. Both heads never registered as faulty with the printer. However when these heads were placed in another printer, they registered as faulty. Conclusion was that the main board within the printer were burning heads out and furthermore could not decipher bad heads as well. So after one head burned out and a second replacement head also immediately was killed upon insertion I no longer insert good heads into printers without thinking twice or even three times unless I know exactly what caused the first head to be faulty in the first place. I have learned that trying heads is not risk free. I know my occurrence is statistically insignificant with a confidence level of less than 0.5%.

The one thing that appears similar is that where the damage looks to be worst ... at the edge.
The next consideration is that the head is placed on the side when the paper advances.
Another consideration is that the direction of travel of the paper and movement of the head is perpendicular. If this occurred while the head was printing, it would have shown oblique angles of damage.
If the paper is advanced and was there was a mechanical interference, the direction of the damage would be perfectly straight. I can't tell for sure.

 

[Druidia]

Maybe a paper clip or staple

That makes the most sense - this looks like mechanical damage from something being dragged across the print head.

Could be. That was what I thought first. Well, not a paper clip or staple because I can't think of why there would be a paper clip/staple buried among my papers. The printer is on a separate table where there's no other work activity other than putting paper in the printer and taking out the printed sheets. There are no other office supplies there - no paper clips, staples, pen, etc.

Back to what I thought first - so I thought, it got snagged on something sharp? But wouldn't the edge (on the ribbon circuit) look sharp if this was the case? The gash edges on my print head look blunt and burnt. Or maybe it heated up after getting a gash somehow. Who knows?! Thanks for your input.

This is an example of an abused head with burnt markings.

One of your ink nozzle area has a big hole in it with burnt-looking edges. My cyan nozzle area is warped (it's wavy compared to the yellow and magenta) but doesn't have blackened edges. My deep gash is on the ribbon circuit itself and on the gray seal. (What do you call these things? I wonder if someone on this board has a pic of a print head with all the parts labeled so newbies, like me, don't come on board calling every part whatever name I can think of.)

Anyway, thanks for cautioning against just changing print heads without knowing the reason why the first print head got damaged. I wasn't thinking of changing the print head on mine but that's good advice to keep for the future.