Very strange I960 problem

[rvbuilder2002]

So I bought a complete set of OEM carts, cleaned the print head real good with an overnight soak.
I ran a pattern check and everything is perfect except for the Cyan. It doesn't print at all.
Just to see what happens I printed a .TIF file I have of a purge test for all 6 colors and in that test it only prints four colors, the Cyan and Photo Cyan are both missing...whats up with that? I went back to the maint nozzle check test pattern and the Photo Cyan works great but still no Cyan.

BTW all colors are present at the print nozzles of the head....I don't think it is a flow problem.

Any ideas?

 

[ghwellsjr]

How can a .TIF file control whether the photo cyan nozzles are used instead of the cyan? I don't think it can. Also, you should not be printing anything except nozzle checks while you have non-working nozzles--you risk permanently burning out your nozzles.

You may have burned out the photo cyan electronics if you didn't allow sufficient time (2 days in a warm place) for the print head to thoroughly dry out before putting it back in the printer.

How did you determine that the photo cyan was present at the print nozzles? Why do you think you don't have a flow problem?

 

[rvbuilder2002]

How can a .TIF file control whether the photo cyan nozzles are used instead of the cyan? I don't think it can. Also, you should not be printing anything except nozzle checks while you have non-working nozzles--you risk permanently burning out your nozzles.

I am not sure what you mean by your question. The file has six colored bars that are labeled as and are supposed to correspond to the 6 cart colors. One is labeled Cyan and one is labeled Photo Cyan Neither will print from this file.

You may have burned out the photo cyan electronics if you didn't allow sufficient time (2 days in a warm place) for the print head to thoroughly dry out before putting it back in the printer.

How did you determine that the photo cyan was present at the print nozzles? Why do you think you don't have a flow problem?

Because both the cyan colors are present if I wipe the head on a paper towel. I assumed it is not a flow problem since even with the presents of Cyan color, it never prints a single bit of cyan in a nozzle check. Is that an incorrect assumption?

 

[ghwellsjr]

First off, let me say I made a mistake in identifying your bad nozzles--it's the cyan, not the photo cyan.

The printer mixes whatever ink colors it pleases to produce the correct image on whatever paper you tell the printer you are using. Think about this: why does the printer driver ask you what type of paper you are using? The only reason is that it is changing the amount of ink from each cartridge depending on your paper type for any particular shade of color. There is no way that you can guarantee what ink will be used simply by the color that is specified in a file. For example, let's say you want to print black. What ink(s) will be used? If you think only black, you may be wrong. Look at this post. For this four-color printer, using a particular paper type, printing in black actually uses the black, cyan and magenta inks. And if you specified a 50% grey, it would use no black at all but instead cyan, magenta and yellow. So how would you make this printer use only the black ink? You cannot.

The same thing may be true for all other shades of all other colors. You just don't know, unless you go to the effort of performing the kind of experiment I did with all the colors of interest to you. In general, it can be said that it is not possible to predict how to get your printer to use the nozzles that you want it to.

In your particular case, you indicated that from the nozzle check, you can see that the photo cyan nozzles work but the cyan nozzles do not work. Then your .tiff file has a cyan color bar and a photo cyan color bar but neither one of them prints anything. This means that your printer decided to print these two particular shades using only the cyan ink but since that one doesn't work, nothing printed.

But it doesn't matter. As I said before, you don't want to print anything, especially color bars when you have incorrectly working nozzles. Just print nozzle checks until they work or until you give up.

Now to the issue of ink flow: When you do a head cleaning, the print head parks on top of an absorbant pad in a rubber tray with tubing connected to the bottom side. During the head cleaning a pump connected to the tubing sucks on the bottom of the print head and starts the ink flowing. This does not involve any electrical firing of the nozzles, it's 100% mechanical. When you wiped the nozzles with a paper towel, you are seeing the remants of that ink. So chances are you are correct, you do not have an ink flow problem.

However, as I mentioned earlier, you probably have an electircal problem. If you're lucky, removing the print head and wiping the contacts both on the back of the print head and on the carriage may correct the problem but most of the time, these symptoms are indicative of an electrical problem and cannot be fixed.

 

[rvbuilder2002]

First off, let me say I made a mistake in identifying your bad nozzles--it's the cyan, not the photo cyan.

The printer mixes whatever ink colors it pleases to produce the correct image on whatever paper you tell the printer you are using. Think about this: why does the printer driver ask you what type of paper you are using? The only reason is that it is changing the amount of ink from each cartridge depending on your paper type for any particular shade of color. There is no way that you can guarantee what ink will be used simply by the color that is specified in a file. For example, let's say you want to print black. What ink(s) will be used? If you think only black, you may be wrong. Look at this post. For this four-color printer, using a particular paper type, printing in black actually uses the black, cyan and magenta inks. And if you specified a 50% grey, it would use no black at all but instead cyan, magenta and yellow. So how would you make this printer use only the black ink? You cannot.

The same thing may be true for all other shades of all other colors. You just don't know, unless you go to the effort of performing the kind of experiment I did with all the colors of interest to you. In general, it can be said that it is not possible to predict how to get your printer to use the nozzles that you want it to.

In your particular case, you indicated that from the nozzle check, you can see that the photo cyan nozzles work but the cyan nozzles do not work. Then your .tiff file has a cyan color bar and a photo cyan color bar but neither one of them prints anything. This means that your printer decided to print these two particular shades using only the cyan ink but since that one doesn't work, nothing printed.

But it doesn't matter. As I said before, you don't want to print anything, especially color bars when you have incorrectly working nozzles. Just print nozzle checks until they work or until you give up.

Now to the issue of ink flow: When you do a head cleaning, the print head parks on top of an absorbant pad in a rubber tray with tubing connected to the bottom side. During the head cleaning a pump connected to the tubing sucks on the bottom of the print head and starts the ink flowing. This does not involve any electrical firing of the nozzles, it's 100% mechanical. When you wiped the nozzles with a paper towel, you are seeing the remants of that ink. So chances are you are correct, you do not have an ink flow problem.

However, as I mentioned earlier, you probably have an electircal problem. If you're lucky, removing the print head and wiping the contacts both on the back of the print head and on the carriage may correct the problem but most of the time, these symptoms are indicative of an electrical problem and cannot be fixed.

Ok, now I understand...thanks for taking the time to explain it.

I assumed the .TIF file I downloaded from a printer maint. web site forced those inks to be used...bad assumption.

I will try cleaning all of the contacts and see what happens.
What is the probability that this is only a problem with the head and not some electronics in the printer?
I already have $80 invested in a new set of OEM carts. I may be willing to try a new print head if there is a good chance that will fix it.

 

[ghwellsjr]

It's a very good chance that since most of your nozzles work, a new print head will solve your problem. I would do it. You can probably buy one at a local authorized Canon service center for less money than on eBay.