Canon Inkjet head problem

I brought our old Canon MP810 out of storage last week. No Magenta cartridge in it for years, K had dried up, k wet but not printing, getting faint Y and C. Looked pretty bad. I got it all working nearly ok with new K and M cart's, did some pages of solid colour to clear only the non-working nozzles, just some faint banding on K and M test print I couldn't get rid of. Because of this I took the head out and cleaned it. It had a nice long soak in plain tap water. Now when I printed a solid M page it started ok, but turned stripey halfway through. This was proper stripes, making it look like old style computer printout paper. I ended up where on the test print, the darkest strip of each colour consists of 1.5mm stripes, the paler strips don't show stripes. It looks as if the stripes are appearing in the same order for each colour. It now also has new Y and C cartridges - still stripey.

I've cleaned it by soaking several times since then, using filtered water, then filtered water with added isopropanol, and finally de-ionised water with isopropanol and dish-soap (which I've stored in jars as head cleaner)
I don't know how to fully interpret the test print. The one shown was done one cleaning cycle after cartridge insertion after the last manual clean.

So I think either an electrical fault has developed so the same group is failing for each colour, or that somehow a row of nozzles has got blocked.

Any suggestions how I should approach this? Is it worth trying to force the cleaner through with a syringe? Or try to find a faulty connection? Or try to see if something like a hair has got inside the head?

Inkjets often end up with partially blocked print heads. In my experince, it's rarely something that can be fixed without simply replacing the print head.

Thanks for the response. Have you come across a situation where manually cleaning the head appears to have caused the problem? (Or in my case, made a slight problem into a big one)

The few opportunities I managed ro get my printer working correctly again (EPSON) was when doing the cleaning in a process that repeated twice. There was a warning indicating that it meant the use of an inusual amount of ink. It worked OK. Sorry cannot recall the model.

throbscottle said:

Have you come across a situation where manually cleaning the head appears to have caused the problem?

Click to expand...

Is it a removable head or cartridge?

I've not used Canon inkjets, but with old HP ones, the array of contacts between the print cartridge and its carrier could be very touchy at times. A toothbrush dipped in IPA usually did the trick with those.

throbscottle said:

Thanks for the response. Have you come across a situation where manually cleaning the head appears to have caused the problem? (Or in my case, made a slight problem into a big one)

Click to expand...

Yeah, I have tried cleaning a few printer heads, but it rarely works and often makes it worse or does nothing useful.

Must admit I always stuck to HP Inkjets, as the print head is replaced with every new cartridge.

However, as I don't do much printing at home these days, I found that every time I came to use it the printhead had dried up.

So, I suspect in common with many here?, I solved the problem and bought a laser printer (HP of course) instead have and never had a problem - and in fact am still on the toner it came with. We also use HP Lasers at work, but they get a LOT more use, and regular replacement toners etc.

It seems I've had a better experience .. .. .. . I have an Epson WF-2750 which suffers a similar problem because I don't use it often enough - it dries up.

However, I tried a 'printhead cleaning kit' from Ebay - £3.00 or so, which involves removing the ink cartridges, placing some rolled up tissue under the printhead and then firing some cleaning fluid through the system with the aid of a syringe and a piece of soft plastic tube.

Worked a treat for me .. .. .. I'm not sure what the fluid is, I don't think it's IPA - certainly doesn't smell like IPA but it cleans it up nicely enough.


S