Black Printer Ink

[woodbloke]

I've got a Canon i965 printer (reasonably new) where the black ink only will not print. All the other ink tanks work fine and all are fullish so I can use it to print but all text comes out in a sort of bottle green colour I've done a head clean about 6 times now and also this machine has a 'deep clean' facility which apparently uses a lot of ink...I've done this once but it still won't print in black. Anything else I can do or is there something simple that I haven't yet done? Many thanks - Rob

 

[misterfish]

Hi Rob

I wonder if you've got the printer driver set to only print in colour - where black is 'made' by the printing of magenta, cyan and yellow which produces a dark colour but not black. I've got an i850 and the driver for that certainly uses the black cartridge for text and the colour cartridges for coloured stuff - so a coloured image with black will simulate the black by just mixing the three colours. So have a look and see if your settings are to only print using image settings. It might be worth using the 'reset to default' option in the printer driver properties page to see if that makes any difference. Of course, it may be that the print head is knackered - if you've printed a lot with an empty cartridge it (apparently) can damage the print head.

As an aside, my father-in law has a PIXMA 4000 which has two black cartridges - one for text black and one for black in photos.

Misterfish

 

[StevieB]

Try taking the colour cartridges out and then printing text. If its using the coloured cartridges to print text it will then tell you it cannot as they are not there. At least thats how my printer works....

Steve.

 

[RogerS]

Duff cartridge?

 

[woodbloke]

Fellas - thanks for the replies. I've checked the printer settings and set everything to 'default' but it still doesn't make any difference.
Rog - I've lifted out the black ink tank and dabbed my hand on the business end...have now got a black ink mark on the end of my finger
I'm coming to the sad and fairly rapid conclusion that I may have damaged the black print head 'cos I know that we did a bit of textural printing when the black tank was low or very empty - Rob

 

[RobertMP]

Take the cart out and put a few drops of isopropyl alcohol into the port the cart fits into, refit the cart and leave it for an hour then try again.

Not got the same printer but works every time on my epson. I use 'eclipse' fluid made for camera lens cleaning but any similar alcohol product should do it.

 

[woodbloke]

Take the cart out and put a few drops of isopropyl alcohol into the port the cart fits into, refit the cart and leave it for an hour then try again.

Not got the same printer but works every time on my epson. I use 'eclipse' fluid made for camera lens cleaning but any similar alcohol product should do it.

Robert - many thanks for that tip, will have to try and get hold of some alchohol. I wonder if methylated spirits could be used instead or maybe acetone? - Rob

 

[NickWelford]

Acetone will probably melt the plastic bits and make a hell of a mess......

 

[woodbloke]

Acetone will probably melt the plastic bits and make a hell of a mess......

Nick - probably not a good idea to use acetone then :lol: - Rob

 

[devonwoody]

drastic action but if you put another black cartridge in and that works you know it was the old cart.

If the new cart doesnt work either you have most probably got another expense this side of Xmas.