i9900 Not Printing Ink

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Archive 2009 · i9900 Not Printing Ink

rdutto01
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p.1 #1 · i9900 Not Printing Ink

I have a Canon i9900 that has worked flawlessly until a couple days ago. All of a sudden no ink would be on the paper when printed. When I do a nozzle check, you can barely see some black ink dots but no colors. I've done a deep cleaning on it several times and it doesn't change how the nozzle check prints.

How can I troubleshoot what is wrong? Is there any way to test if the print head is bad?

This printer has been perfect for me for several years and I don't print that much on it. I'd really like to fix it.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thank you,

Nov 17, 2009 at 02:22 AM

timgangloff
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p.1 #2 · i9900 Not Printing Ink

I can't recall, but some of the canon printers have removable print heads. From time to time, I've flushed mine under warm water to remove any clogs. Blot dry with a soft cloth. I think I could do this with i9100, but can't recall about the i9900 and I don't have it anymore.

Nov 17, 2009 at 03:21 AM

rdutto01
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p.1 #3 · i9900 Not Printing Ink

I'd be willing to try, but I'm wondering if someone has come across instructions on how to remove the print head on the i9900.

Thank you,

Nov 17, 2009 at 04:01 AM

XFBO
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p.1 #4 · i9900 Not Printing Ink

rdutto01 wrote:
I'm wondering if someone has come across instructions on how to remove the print head on the i9900.

Thank you,

- Pop ink carts out.
- Slide grey lever on right side up.
- Carefully tilt/lift print head up n out.

A lot of ppl recommend using Windex right off the bat but if you have no rush, try using warm tap water first. Get a paper towel soaked in warm water, sit the nozzle side down on the wet towel,let it sit for awhile then wipe them.

Mine was clogged pretty good so I wound up using Windex instead of water. Check out this link it might be helpful,

http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=3736

Nov 17, 2009 at 05:48 AM

rdutto01
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p.1 #5 · i9900 Not Printing Ink

Hey XFBO,
Thank you so much for the advice and the helpful link!!!!!

Nov 18, 2009 at 07:00 PM

XFBO
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p.1 #6 · i9900 Not Printing Ink

No problem!

One last tip, dont give up easily....Im convinced a lot of ppl toss a perfectly good print head not knowing better. I say this because about a month ago I almost did.

I was getting some crazy banding on prints that had me convinced it was toast, sharing the photo's online many thought it was toast too, then some informative guy shared the tip about thoroughly cleaning the contacts and wahla everything is back to normal. I gave those nozzles such a good cleaning that it's probably newer than new.

Nov 19, 2009 at 08:44 PM

dhlewis
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p.1 #7 · i9900 Not Printing Ink

having exactly the same problem with my i9900, last weekend water cleaned still not clean I'll try the windex next. Thanks XFBO

Nov 20, 2009 at 03:49 AM

rdutto01
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p.1 #8 · i9900 Not Printing Ink

Okay, I removed the print head soaked it for about one half hour. I put it back into the printer and loaded the ink carts and printed a nozzle check. The printout came out almost perfect, but the cyan looked a little off. So I printed another nozzle check.

This time the printout did not display any black and one half through the red it stopped printing and no cyan or magenta. Green, photo cyan and photo magenta printed good.

When I printed the third nozzle check, it was back to printing almost nothing except a few horizontal dotted lines of black about one quarter inch in length for each of the 8 colors.

It's like something is getting in the way of ink to the paper.

Anybody have anymore suggestions?

I'm really bummed that the first nozzle check after soaking the print head printed almost perfectly and now it's back to printing almost nothing!!!!!

Nov 21, 2009 at 07:53 AM

Trekka273
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p.1 #9 · i9900 Not Printing Ink

I don't know this printer specifically, but how old are the inks that you are using? I know in some printers, the age of the ink can be a problem.

Nov 21, 2009 at 01:33 PM

XFBO
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p.1 #10 · i9900 Not Printing Ink

rdutto- did you try giving the contacts/pins a good wipe?

That kinda sounds exactly what happened to me, I was getting God awful banding and inconsistent colors. I thought I had a clog from hell or the print head was fried. I must have cleaned that head/nozzles a half dozen times and each time I put her back together it did something different/weird.
So I tried the lint free wipe, put her back together and now I was getting 60-70% better prints but STILL serious banding. At this point, I thought I tried everything at least twice so I almost gave up, let it sit for a few days, went back and decided to try WD40 on a clean rag and wiped the contacts real good again along with the needle like pins that touch it (careful to only wipe lightly in a downward direction).....I ran a test print and I was back in business.
I also ran a nozzle check and everything looked good to me. I used it a few more times, all good, but I did acquire a used Epson 3800 about 2-3 weeks ago so I havent really been using the Canon since.

Give that a try please then get back to us!

Also, can you elaborate how you soaked your print head and in what?

Hoping you didn't stick the whole thing in there!

Nov 21, 2009 at 05:28 PM

rdutto01
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p.1 #11 · i9900 Not Printing Ink

I soaked just the bottom of the print head in some wet paper towel. I also wiped both print head and the pins with WD40, but it still hasn't made a difference.

Since almost no ink comes out on any cart except black, leads me to believe that the print head side is not making contact with the printer pins.

If it was having banding problems, etc., I would think that it's a clogged print head, but for every color to be clogged even after soaking the print head in warm water makes me think it's some other problem. When I take the head out, there is definitely ink on the paper towel when I wipe the bottom.

It's all very frustrating since it went from printing perfectly to printing absolutely nothing all at once. I haven't changed ink cartridges and the ink is all new. I've even replaced the existing ink cartridges with new ones just to rule out a bad ink cartridge.

I'll be the first one to admit I don't understand how the printer works, but it seems weird that it would go from printing perfectly every color to not printing any colors except a few dots of black.

Thank you for all the help.

Nov 22, 2009 at 08:46 AM

XFBO
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p.1 #12 · i9900 Not Printing Ink

Yea the not printing anything part has me thinking it's def an electrical issue. Did you share this problem on the nifty site?

Nov 22, 2009 at 09:43 PM


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