Weird Canon printer action has me stumped - Help!

[pixm...@comcast.net]

Without jumping into the non-clogging printer thread, I can say that,
until now, my Canon iP4000 has been delivering excellent color images
for years.

Now, the printer does a fine job of printing a full 8½ x 11 color
image but only until it reaches the last inch of paper. Then some of
the jets seem to start skipping leaving what might be called a magenta
streak across the narrow dimension of the paper. It's not a solid
streak—it's as if the photo black head sputters a bit.

The streaking seems to recover and is almost gone by the time the
printhead reaches the last 1/16 of an inch of paper.

THis behavior seems to occur in a regular pattern on every print I
make and I can't figure out what may be causing it.

Recently, I migrated from Windows XP to Windows 7 (what a bloody pain)
and had trouble getting the iP4000 to work on the Windows 64-bit
system. I installed the aomwin110eaus program from Canon and that got
the printer working with the 64-bit Windows 7.

I'm not certain if this streaking problem is connected with the
32-bit/64-bit problem. I talked with Canon support but they couldn't
help.

Has anyone had a similar problem and, if so, how did you fix it?

Any help will be appreciated. This is really a good printer and I'd
hate to lose it. Thanks!

pixmaker
DaveinFLL

It's not the heat,
it's the humidity.

(...think the humidity's bad?
You should watch us vote!)

[Fred McKenzie]

In article <idbtf8tg1h01b4vju...@4ax.com>,

Dave-

Does the printer have a way of doing a test print from its keyboard?
That would show whether the problem was due to the new Windows program,
or is the result of a problem in the printer.

I'm thinking that there may be some excess ink spattered around the
print head. Just as paper gets to the point where the pattern occurs,
its trailing edge may be curling towards the print head and contacting
the excess ink. The solution might be to use a lint-free cloth to
carefully wipe the insides of the printer.

There might also be a reservoir overflow where excess ink is captured.
Perhaps someone who is familiar with that model can tell you more about
how it works.

Fred

[Tony]

I own one of these and it works fine on Win7 64 bit. It installed like a dream
a good 18 months ago so I am surprised that your system was troublesome in that
regard.
The symptoms you describe do not sound at all like a driver issue, I am almost
convinced it is mechanical as the other responder has mentioned. I would look
for a build up of ink in the paper path, around the bed where the white plates
are (open top cover to see that area) passing several sheets of paper through
the printer may help. The confusing part is that I would expect a build up of
ink to cause extra ink streaks to appear rather than missing ink. Are you using
the same paper that previously gave good results? Not all paper is created
equal and some photo papers are not compatible with some inks.
Tony

[pixm...@comcast.net]

x 11 sheet to each of you who responded to my problem.

FYI, I use MIS inks and have been refilling for years. Also, one of
the best papers I've found is the 8½ x 11 glossy paper sold by COSTCO.
The price is right and the quality is (IMHO) excellent. I've heard
that paper is made by Ilford, which explains its quality.

Charlie+ may have hit on the answer. I've removed the printhead and
cleaned it thoroughly and inspected the paper path as well. It seems
to me that, if an ink buildup was to blame, the streaking would occur
across the entire sheet (vertical lines in a landscape-format image.
As the streaking only occurs near the trailing end of the paper, the
idea of a subtle photo-black cartridge clog makes a lot of sense.

The problem only occurs on an 8½ x 11 sheet in landscape mode
supporting the idea that the cartridge poops out but only after a
considerable stretch of printing.

I plan to create a set of color bars running horizontally on the
landscape format, alternately red cyan yellow and photo black
(I'll make them halftone bars to simulate printing a photo image.)
That should let me determine which cartridge is failing. I'll let you
all know what I find.

Thanks Charlie+ for the observation and idea!


pixmaker










On Wed, 23 Jan 2013 07:44:10 +0000, Charlie+ <cha...@xxx.net> wrote:

>On Tue, 22 Jan 2013 10:22:34 -0500, pixm...@comcast.net wrote as
>underneath :

>
>>Without jumping into the non-clogging printer thread, I can say that,
>>until now, my Canon iP4000 has been delivering excellent color images
>>for years.
>>
>>Now, the printer does a fine job of printing a full 8½ x 11 color
>>image but only until it reaches the last inch of paper. Then some of
>>the jets seem to start skipping leaving what might be called a magenta
>>streak across the narrow dimension of the paper. It's not a solid
>>streak—it's as if the photo black head sputters a bit.
>>
>>The streaking seems to recover and is almost gone by the time the
>>printhead reaches the last 1/16 of an inch of paper.
>>
>>THis behavior seems to occur in a regular pattern on every print I
>>make and I can't figure out what may be causing it.
>>

>snip
>I think it sounds like ink starvation that only sets in after a
>significant throughput ie near the end of page.
>If you are using manyX refilled cartridges, the yellow and the
>photoblack in the IP4000 (a brilliant printer) tend to some age
>problems, the yellow sometimes will partially settle out of solution,
>the photoblack exit sponge sometimes clogs in the centre, thus
>throttling the throughput - I think this might be your problem. If you
>are using original and not too old carts then my analysis will probably
>be wrong!
>C+

[pixm...@comcast.net]

Charlie:

I liked the idea of replacing the black dye cartridge. . . especially
since I've been refilling the present one for over a year! (I must
have refilled at least 20X since new.)

I guess I too would falter after having been refilled that often!

Found a new (old cartridge) one, refilled it with black dye and ran
three quick prints. VOILA! the problem has disappeared!

The exit sponge is OK. I would think I'd have vertical streaks across
the entire width of the landscape page if that sponge was a li'l high
but I think your first ideasolved the problem.

Now, I have another problem. . . The techs at Canon (very nice aand
very helpful) suggested using the "avoid paper abrasion" setting and I
did that setting. Now, however, I can't remove the setting! I have
yet to try all the tricks to do that but it's really a pita. Ah well,
at least I'm not bored!

Thanks

dm



On Thu, 24 Jan 2013 08:27:39 +0000, Charlie+ <cha...@xxx.net> wrote:

>On Wed, 23 Jan 2013 17:30:56 -0500, pixm...@comcast.net wrote as
>underneath my scribble :
>snip

>>
>>Thanks Charlie+ for the observation and idea!
>>
>>

>S'ok!
>You know that you can pull the exit sponge out with tweezers, give it a
>seeing to and replace? - this will help at least isolate the problem,
>then just get another cartridge and off you go again for another n
>refills!!!