Printhead Longevity

[mrelmo]

After running my MP990 for 4 years and 7000 pages I had a problem with the cyan being plugged, the first time I have ever had to replace a print head, I have been top filling with precision colors for I don't know how long I would have to ask mike if he has a record of when I first ordered his inks. Anyways I was wondering if anyone has checked the number of pages they printed before they had to replace the print head? Oh one other thing I stopped using black pigment, I refill strictly with black dye as you can run dye ink in a pigment cartridge but I won't try pigment in a dye cartridge, I do it out of convince

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

actually the number of pages are not so relevant, it is more a matter to the total amount of ink used up so far - you can have lots of text pages, or lots of text with embedded images or you are printing mainly photos which makes a huge difference for the ink coverage on the pages. Using dye ink instead of pigment ink is possible, but dye inks migrate further along the fibres in the paper and create a less precise edge on letters etc, pigment inks don't diffuse into plain paper that much , those pigments are bigger.

 

[PeterBJ]

Sadly if something goes wrong with the ink, the ink becomes much more important than number of prints made, amount of ink used or time since the first print.

Here is the nozzle check from an MP540 which I think suffers from "The Magenta Fungus Disease" . Also notice The EEPROM info, the printer has not done enough printing to be worn out in my opinion.

And here is the EEPROM info:

 

[turbguy]

Thermal printhead "longevity" is very likely to be related to the number of nozzle "firings" (thermal cycles), and to permissible peak operating temperature of the printhead integrated electronics. There's a LOT of micro-components and conductors in the nozzle plate "die". If you loose one current path, entire banks of nozzles stop firing...which from my observation on this forum, is a VERY common failure mode. More so than an individual nozzle failure.

That said, the longevity of the printhead might be lengthened by lowering the peak operating temperature. This can be done by:

--Using "Quite Mode" at all times to slow printing speed down (reduced nozzle firings/second).

--Selecting longer ink drying times while printing multi-page docs (inserts a pause time between pages, permitting thermal transfer between the die and heat sink).

,and perhaps other methods.

The worst operating scheme would be to operate the printer with no liquid ink in contact with the die! That ink provides another cooling medium.

And then there's "infant mortality" failures to contend with....

 

[The Hat]

@tubguy, There is one other scenario that you did not cover, and that is conducting tests on inks till head destruction, that’s my favourite..

 

[palombian]

I am over 10.000 pages with the first head in a MX7600 Canon pigment printer.
The PRO9500 service manual mentions a PRINTER life of 20.000 pages or 5 years, whatever comes first.
If this supposes you have to change the printhead once, I am confortable with it.

Some forum members report several 40-50K pages with older models of (dye) printers.
The present models are less sturdy built, but I see no reason why the printheads should be worse.

 

[turbguy]

The present models are less sturdy built, but I see no reason why the printheads should be worse.

I suspect thermal print head technology has not improved much from a decade ago, but the MARKET drives SPEED in printing, which implies a greater duty on thermal printheads.

Slow down, world!