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[Normando]

Harpmaker documents how he saved himself over $100 for a replacement printhead for his Cannon iP4000. This guide should also apply to Cannon iP5000 printer.

Please note that this guide seems not to work on the Canon iP3000 printer. See the posts below for more details.

LINK

Feel free to add your comments/questions below.

[sfb42]

Hi there

I just did the same thing on my ip3000 printer.

The problem is that when I reinstalled the printhead, the printer status monitor shows a message "The appropriate print head is not installed." The biggest problem is that when I open the cover, the printhead is standing still, so I'm not able to change it if I buy a new one. Any ideas please???? Any suggestions???
Or simply I have to buy a new printer

[Harpmaker]

Hi sfb42,

Welcome to the forum!

The printhead won't even advance so you can get to it? OUCH!!! I would say you're definitely between a hard place and a rock!

My guess is that perhaps one of the wires in the printhead ribbon cable was damaged, but that's just a guess.

I looked on my IP5000 (I bought it for less than a new IP4000 printhead would cost) and I don't see anything structural in the area over the printhead when it is parked, so, in theory, you could remove this area to get to the printhead. I would only do this if regular disassembly is out of the question.

As for buying a new printer; I wouldn't know what to recommend. The newer Canon models use ink cartridges that are designed to NOT be refillable. If the printer detects a refilled cartridge it WILL void the warranty on the printer. I don't know if any of the refill companies have found a way around that or not.

Personally, if something were to happen to my IP5000 I would probably get one of the cheap Minolta color laser printers. A friend has one and the prints look good.

[larrylwill]

Strange, I too have an IP3000 and I had a problem with the Black Ink. exactly 1/2 of the black did not print. If I printed a test pattern it showed only the top 1/2 like somebody drew a line across the middle of the head. Nothing on the bottom 1/2. The colors were ok. So I dissembled my head which I have done on other printers and cleaned it and reassembled it and I too have the same error. I get 5 orange flashes. No print head. I put another head from my S600 and it works fine. I am absolulty certain I did NOT break any wires on the ribbon. It has to be something else.

[Harpmaker]

Hi larrylwill,

Welcome to the forum!

Thanks very much for your post. As I said, it was just a guess on my part that a broken ribbon-cable wire was the problem, and it seems that I was wrong. I do find the problem strange since I had no such problem with my IP4000 (I've had the head apart twice); but then again, that printer does use a different head than the IP3000.

How did you get the printer to move the printhead to the center of the printer so it could be removed after getting the error?

[jmr.bargara]

Following Harpmaker's excellent illustrated instructions I had no trouble in restoring the clogged iP 3000 head to working order.

[Harpmaker]

Hi jmr.bargara,

Welcome to the forum!

Thanks for the report of your successful iP-3000 head cleaning! I'm glad it worked for you!

[jruth]

I just PM'd Harpmaker with this question and thought I'd throw it out to everyone. How do you do the initial disassembly of the total printhead/holder unit, so that you can start following the instructions in Harpmaker's guide? Thanks...

[Harpmaker]

[LEO]

Hi,

DON'T DO THIS

I tried cleaning the head for my Pixma 4000 before reading this article. I ran hot thoroughly through from the cartridge side. It looked like all the heads were clear so I tried it in the printer. Only one of the heads was printing despite numerous cleans, so I suspected that the printer head was not thoroughly dry and thus causing an electrical problem. No swet, I just popped the head in the oven with the temperature set at 125 degrees C. I figured this would dry it out.

I am sure this would have worked fine if I did not put the head directly in front of the fan (fan forced oven) where the temperature was obviously a lot higher than 125C.

Result - a warped printer head. Though perfectly dry, but totally useless.

I would do the same again, but not place the head in front of the fan.

[Masterwebman]

I am visiting in the central highlands of Guatemala. My friend's printer would not print properly. I had brought down replacement cartridtes for her IP 4000printer. The Magenta jets seemed completely clogged. No amount of head cleaning would help. I searched the web and found the turorial. After removing the cartrige holder / print head, I found it very difficult to remove the two screws which hold the print head to the cartridge holder. Ink also dribbled all over my work space and hands. The only screwdriver I had was tiny and I couldn't get enough torque to loosen the screws and I didn't want to strip the heads. I then re-read the instructions and decided I would try forcing hot water through the cartridge holder. At first the black and cyan ink washed out. Finally, I began to see Magenta dribbling out the print head. I continued until only clear water came through except for a few drops of magenta. I reversed the process and ran the very hot water the other way back through the print head. I could see magenta bubbling up through the screen. Over about 5 minutes time the color became more and more diluted until it began to run clear. I then blew air through the print head for a minute or so and then left the unit to dry over night on a paper towel. In the morning I set the unit out to dry further in the sunlight for a few hours. I then put the unit back into the printer, replaced the cartidges and tried to print. I got a message that the print head needed re-alignment. After the printer went through the re-alignment cycle, it printed out only black and cyan. I thought I had made it worse. I then tried a nozzle test. It wasn't perfect, but the magenta printed. I cleaned the print head once, then tried deep cleaning. The resultant print test was perfect. I then printed a couple of photos which had a lot of pinks and reds in them. The printed perfectly. Better in fact than the printer had done in a long time. My conclusion is that it might be better to try this method before dismantling the print head and soaking overnight. Especially with the advice that the gaskets are fragile. Anyway, that's my tale. Without the tutorial I would never have fixed this printer. Gracias.

[Harpmaker]

Hello Masterwebman,

Welcome to the forum!

Thanks for telling us of your head-cleaning experience, and glad the tutorial helped you.

Your technique of not removing the ceramic print-head and just using water to clean everything would indeed be a better way of unclogging a Canon print cartridge, if it works. This way the print-head itself would stand no change of being misaligned; and less chance of being damaged.

If your technique didn't work, then it would be time to disassemble everything as in the tutorial.

[Camou]

Hello!

I would prefer the solution from Masterwebman, too. I'm cleaning printheads of Canon Pixma iP1500 since some years now. But I prefer to use distilled hot water for that. You never get the water out completely and there will remain chalk (or lime? Sorry, english isn't my native language.). Using distilled water will eliminate this problem.

If it doesn't work with water only, I place the print-head on a small plate an fill it with some mm of isopropanol (isopropyl) and leave it there for some time.

I too dry them in the oven like LEO, but with not more than 50 degrees C (around 120 degrees F).

[Harpmaker]

Hi Camou,

Welcome to the forum!

[peichiang]

With the guide, I was able to disassemble my ip4000's print head and did a deep clean to clear out the clogg from the pigmented black print head. Although I still had some little misalignment after I reassemble the head back, I was quite happy with the result.

It took me a whole day to clean the clogg. I used hot tap running water, canned compressed air for duts cleaning, isopropyl alcohol, windex, ... after so many hours, the clogg from the cartridge holder finally got cleared out.

Thanks for Normando to provide such a clear and encouraging guide. I really appreciate it!

[noodlefun]

Hi Harp its me again, I tried washing it with hot water like you said and gave it a day or two to dry off. I still have streaks and now its cyan and yellow when it was just magenta before. I figured it was the alignment problem and when I try to do it, it comes out with a couple test results but errors about 1/2 way. Any clue how to fix this? The b&w in text comes out near perfect except a small smudge but the colors are coming out weird.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, I've been trying to fix this for a month now. Included is a sample of what happens when I print.

[Harpmaker]

[Peter Aretin]

I tried using the excellent guide to clean the print head of my ip4000. Everything seemed to be fine, but when I reinstalled the print head, i get Error 1403, and reinstalling does not help.

I'm mystified as to what physical change could possibly have taken place that would cause the machine to accept the head in the clogged state and reject it when clean, but that seems to be the case.

Both inspecting and flushing with water indicated the head was unobstructed.

I'm not just frustrated by having to buy a new printer or head, but the mystery involved. I don't think any conductors were disturbed.

SIDE NOTE: I'm not sure why the prohibition against rubbing alcohol. The stuff from my drugstore lists only 91% isopropyl and as inert ingredient purified water. It's crystal clear and smells like alcohol.

[Harpmaker]

Hi Peter,

Welcome to the forum!

Sorry to hear that cleaning your print-head didn't go well. My only guess is that some connection somewhere was broken.

The other possibility is that your printer is a later production run than mine and Canon may have added some feature to make the print-head "tamper proof". I don't know and am just guessing, but more and more printers are having such things added to them. It makes me boiling mad too!

As for the prohibition on Rubbing Alcohol, the stuff labeled as such in my area is a green color and has "oil of wintergreen" added to it; definitely not something I want inside my printer.

Any alcohol that is simply a mix of alcohol and water would probably work, or even just lots and lots of warm water to dissolve and flush any ink clogs.

Addendum:

I just did a search on your error code and found this:

Problem-
The print head is not installed [1401], or it is not
properly installed (EEPROM data of the print
head is faulty) [1403 / 1405].

Fix-
Install the print head properly, and close the access cover.
Or, with the print head installed, turn the printer off and on.

[travelrobb]

Hi there-

I used the guide to clean out a clog in my print head, and everything seemed to go fine--but when I reinstalled the cartridge-holder and put the inks back and printed, I got a blank sheet of paper. No error messages or other problems.

Does anyone have any thoughts?

Thanks,
Robb

[Harpmaker]

[travelrobb]

Nope--silly me. I'll try that.

Meanwhile, how dry does the cartridge holder have to be? It doesn't seem like there's any good way to get the remaining drops of water out of the ink channels...

-robb

[Harpmaker]

[travelrobb]

thanks, Harp--unfortunately, the plot has thickened, perhaps even clogged.

I've done three regular cleanings and one deep cleaning, and then nothing. Then I replaced the black 3eBK cartridge (for B&W printing), which was empty--probably should've done that first, I suppose. In any case, I'm now printing fine in B&W, but I always was--it was the color that was a problem, and I still have no color printing at all.

This was sort of a long, slow degeneration. I think I lost the yellow first, and then blue--though I'm not sure about that. In the end, the only color it would print was magenta and black. Now that all the colors are gone, I'm wondering if it might be something other than a clog.

I'm totally mystified, so if anyone here has any suggestions, I'd be grateful.

-Robb

[Harpmaker]

Unfortunately Robb, I'll have to agree with you; it sounds like more than a clog and in fact the head may just have worn out.

It's been a while since I priced printheads for these printers, but I remember finding them online for around $50, which is less than half the retail price.

It's up to you as to how much it would be worth fixing this printer.

For what it's worth, my Samsung CLP-300 color laser printer produces good enough quality color photos for me (although not as good as my Canon IP-4000 and 5000), and refills are under $20 per color for generic toner. They are also more light-fast and don't run if a drop of water gets on them.

Sorry I couldn't help get your printer working again properly.

[partlycloudy22]

I know this is an old post, but I wanted to say thanks for the information. I have the ip3000 which would not respond to multiple self cleaning and deep cleaning cycles. I ended up running hot water over the heads for about ten minutes until ink was no longer visible or no longer draining from the bottom of the heads. I found it useful to run water at different angles to the head and on the filters. I thought I would never get the last of the ink out, but if you keep running water and flipping it over, eventually the clog will "release" and a bunch of ink should come out all at once. The water I used was fairly hot but bearable since we don't have a thermostat on the water heater.

I dried the head with a clean rag and shook out the rest of the water from the electronics. I used some tissue to get the last of the water out of the circuitry (I couldn't wait for it to dry overnight).. twenty minutes later I had good looking prints. The whole process took no more than half an hour.

Also, I did not take apart anything (too lazy) I just put the entire head assembly, electronics and all, under the faucet. There are probably safer ways of doing it, but this worked for me.

[Harpmaker]

Thanks for the post partlycloudy22. Welcome to the forum!

It's best if you don't have to take the print head apart, but that is the next step if simply running hot water through it doesn't fix the problem.

If you don't take time to let the water dry out of the print head before trying to print with it, it could not only fry the print head, but also the printer!

Glad to hear your repair was successful!

[artimplausible]

I am new to the whole forum, so please excuse me if this is an ignorant question. I saw reference at the head to a "guide" by "harpmaker" on how to clean the print heads of Canon printers. However, I don't know where to find this guide or of what it consists. Is that a term that just refers generically to the content of one of your posts?

I suspect that cleaning the print head is the solution to our problem (the appearance of faint white lines). It would seem to me like Canon should have somewhere a procedure mapped out for doing this, if it can be done by the printer or its drivers themselves.

Your help greatly appreciated.

Rich

[Harpmaker]

Hi Rich,

Welcome to the forum!

To see the guide on how I took my Canon print-head apart and cleaned it, go to the first post in this thread and click on the word "LINK". It is a visual guide that Normando made up with photos and text by me.

Some have had success with simply running hot water over and through the print-head without taking it apart. That is the first method I would try if doing multiple "deep cleanings" using the Canon printer driver doesn't fix your printing problem. If that doesn't do the trick then it's time to take the print-head apart as shown in the guide, or simply buy a new print-head (I don't even know if they are still available).

Good Luck!

[smitharbie]

Harpmaker,

I used the step by step instructions for cleaning my Pixma ip3000. It worked beautifully. I had already uninstalled it, so when I installed it, it automatically did a print head alignment. I had to do a one time general cleaning (not deep cleaning) and it worked fine.

I have since cleaned the print head on my other ip3000. I'll let it dry for at least 24 hours before I try using it. Hopefully it will work also.

I didn't have a needle for my syringe, but I find that if you leave the small inner gasket on, the syringe can be pressed over each hole from the bottom and it causes a seal so you can inject alcohol.

I used hot water, as hot as I could reasonably stand it. Flushed a LOT from all sides until it was clean. I used a small straight pin for the small holes on the underside, so that did what the syringe needle would have done. I dried it as best I could and let it set at room temperature for 24 hours to dry completely before I attempted to install it.

I want to thank you, personally, for your help. It saved me a great deal of money and headache. I especially enjoyed your humor, the $19.95 segment.

I was told by a techie friend that the problem with clogging was pretty much due to cheap ink, which I do use, but the one printer clog was a clog from Cannon cartridge, and that slot had never had anything other than pure Cannon.

I also have an ip4300. I was wondering, is the cleaning similar if I get clogs in it?

Thanks again, big time!