Refill Epsons--No more compatibles

[lolopr1]

I thought this was an Epson topic, some topics are ruined by the Canon Ghost. It's a shame.

 

[Trigger 37]

mikling,.... I have to strongly disagree with your conclusion. It only misleads other people. Electrical circuits like the ones that control the firing of ink jet nozzles in Canon printers do not gradually die or fade away, and they don't come back to life after a little rest. They also don't cause banding. They either work or they are bad. Sometimes electrical circuits can become intermitent, but even then their symptoms are either totally on or off,.. nothing in between.

Print nozzles that cause banding can be only one of 4 things,... 1. Clogged individual nozzles,.. that is some are clogged and some are not and some may be partially. 2. Starved printhead due to poor ink flow of ink Carts. 3. Air blockage somewhere in the flow of ink. 4. Clogged or damaged Purge unit that can not suck sufficient ink all the way from the ink tank through the printhead and down to the nozzles. 5. Oh yes, I forgot to mention,... a small combination of all of the above working together such that you see banding. You fix anyone of these and you wil see temporary improvement in the printing. If you never really fix the problem,...history will repeat itself.

If you printed the Service Test page (not the nozzle check) you can see each and every nozzle in the printhead fire for a specific period at a precise place. Every ink drop on that page tells you the complete story about your printer. If you have banding,.. it isn't hit or miss,.. it will be a specific set of nozzles that don't produce an ink DOT where and when they should. A lot of people over look the purge unit but I think it is much more important. If you have any kind of air gap between the ink tank, the printhead, and the nozzles, the action of firing a single nozzle will not work. The resistor in the nozzle heat up ink and creates a bubble which expands until it is ejected. In the process of squirting out it creates a small vacuum which sucks more in through the entire path. Imagine if there is an air gap somewhere in the path. There will be no vacuum to pull the ink along. This is why the Purge unit is necessary to suck the ink out of the entire path to "PRIME" each nozzle so it will fire. Imagine if one, two or ten random nozzles are blocked. They may fire a little but without sufficient ink they can't create the necesary vacuum to pull any ink through the head from the ink tanks. It always comes down to "STARVATION"

Do me a favor and print out from the Service Mode the Service Test data and tell me how many nozzles are not printing in each of the crosshatch patterns for all 6 colors. I use a 10X magnifier to check each one of mine. That is what it takes, especially for the photo Cyan and photo majenta. Also, since there is a second row of heads that Canon uses to print "Micro ink drops", these print in picoliter sizes and you can imagine how easy it is to clog up those rows. Do a simple water flush ink your sink until there is no more ink coming out, then turn the printhead over and let the water hit the bottom of the nozzles full force. Repeat this several times. If you want to you can soak the printhead over night and repeat the process in the morning. The dry the printhead with an air compress or blow dryer. Before you put the printhead back in the printer, check the purge unit by adding some windex or water with a syringe to the black and color ink suction Caps and cycle the printer on and off and verify that the purge unit can suck the caps dry. Verify you ink carts will flow ink out the bottom by blowing in the top of the ink cart while holding it over a paper towel. Install the printhead and run 2 or more Deep cleaning cycles and turn the printer off. Then use the Resume button and the power button to go into Service Mode. Once you get there, press the Resume once then the power button and it will print the Service Test Data sheet. If it is not satisfactory, you can do another deep cleaning cycle in Service Mode and then re-print the Service Test pattern.

I have a Canon iP6600D and the nozzle check pattern prints out 10 rows of color test dots. One for Black and Yellow each, and two each for C,M,Pc,Pm. If only one out of the 3200 nozzles does not work, there will be some banding somewhere. You can get banding if several of the resistors in the printhead actual burn out. Yes they are dead of old age but the Service test data also gives you the temperature of the printhead as well as the ambient temp. The only problem with this test data is that it does not tell you where the problem is,.. it just shows you what is wrong.

 

[hpnetserver]

Mikling wrote: "So we were all wrong, not bad inks not refill method or whatever but simply OLD age and wear and tear."

Trigger, the fact is in these words. It is bad ink, bad cartridge that caused clogging to the print head followed by mistreatment leading to its final death indicated by blinking lights.

Lolopr1, this thread becomes so hot. Please be patient with us. Next time we will try to behave.

 

[mikling]

Chuckle Chuckle, I brought my share of clogged Canon heads back to perfect working order too. This one is dead and it is likely the mutiplexing firing circuit that has gone out.

 

[Trigger 37]

mikling,.. You may be laughing but others that read this forum are not. The logic card processor creates the digital timing signals in Binary code that is sent to the printhead where it is decoded in a diode matrix, which results in a small current for each specific resistor in each nozzle. These are precise microsecond pules that fire each nozzle at the correct time. If the "Multiplexing firing Circuitry" had gone out, nothing would be there. If it had gone "Wacky", the printed lines would be all over the place like random noise.

It is very easy to prove me wrong,... just print the nozzle pattern again and mark the time on it. Then try anyone of the cleaning steps or change anything in the path, like the ink tanks, and reprint the nozzle test. If you see one nozzle come back to life, you have your answer. I know you have brought many printheads back to life,.. and you know how difficult it can be,...but you have done it. Some are just super hard to do. You said that from time to time before it finally quit you would see some improvement. That is the clue that is important.

 

[mikling]

Progressive death my friends. Intermittent 7 orange flases, then goes away works fine for a few minutes, then gets wacky again, it is DEAD now. Won't come back. Want me to do the Monty Python thing on it????? The dead parrot......

No more pestering please.

 

[hpnetserver]

"Progressive death my friends. Intermittent 7 orange flases, then goes away works fine for a few minutes, then gets wacky again, it is DEAD now. Won't come back."

Sigh! You still don't get it. You are confused by the final symptom of a dead print head and the clogging symptom before you killed it by mistreatment. Based on your logic every dead print head is caused by a bad multiplexer of the print head. If you are fortunate to save one then the multiplexer is good. But if you are unsuccessful then it must be the multiplexer.