How to interpret and troubleshooting Canon's Standard Nozzle Check Pattern Page
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- On Jul 05, 2021
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Today we're going to talk about how to read a nozzle check pattern from Canon. These are standard nozzle check pages. What happens is you would have two cartridges. One is black, has a pigment ink (or you converted to the dyeing already), and then you had another cartridge. The cartridge is a tri-color cartridge (CMY). If you print a document and in black, the printer will use black to print a copy. Yet, if you print a photo, even if it's black in color, the printer combines the three CMY colors. This is because the pigment is not great in printing pictures.
When you print pictures, the printer is trying to use those three colors to paint a picture. That's why you have the grayish black next to each of CMY color. For the black, the Canon doesn't need to test the mixing. The Canon print from the black cartridge itself, which shows you if the black is clogged. Then for each color, Canon prints at two levels. This is 100% level, and Canon will not tell me what level this is, but I suspect it is about 70% or 80%. Level I mean is several dots printed on a Page. You're going to think this Y is the all the nozzles are firing. This is some part of the nozzle that is firing. I have a conversation with Canon for an hour. When you have a clog, the clog might not be shown. If you have all the nozzles firing and that the clog may be here. But, when only some of the nozzles are firing, you may see the clogging. That's why they designed two levels.
This black they're mixed, they're mixed black. You can say it is if you mixed CMY, you have a different black than the natural black. Those are two other things. CMM is the same as yellow, so I hope you understand now what this means. For example, this is one of the cartridges that I unclogged yesterday. Let's focus on the color. Those two colors are okay, and you can see at the full nozzle where it is, but every nozzle is firing. Look at the closer. You got a pretty good print out except you can see a little bit here. But, if you're not using a full nozzle, you can see there's black. It means there may still be some clogs stick to the printhead.
When you did not print the total force, you'll not get the correct print. Also, you can see there's a little bit thing here. That means the printhead clogs sometimes not. I used a regular unclogging method. From the result of the first cleaning, you can see it has improved a lot. If I had a half nozzle, you got to print out. This will tell you some of them still need to be cleaned. Then actually, this paper is on the third page after washing, so everything is fine.
In contrast, if we have this cartridge, you can see it upset. The one at the full nozzle, you got nothing coming out. So then we have a partial, and then you got a perfect print.
this is the problem-- I have a theory I brought to Canon, but they won't verify. All they tell me is, "You can go buy a new cartridge." I didn't want to answer it. I suspect if you see, I have another video that shows you when the printhead is about to die. I have this super-bubble. Here's my theory. If you only fire a couple of nozzles, that printhead is fine. It's like this, but when you fire everybody all together, it starts overheating. That's why this is not printed, but this is print fine.
You can see it's not a virgin, so it's been used. Likely, this guy is at the end of his life, and we cannot confirm this theory. One thing we can try is going to try all the unclogging methods, see if we'll unclog this. If we can unclog it, we want to see how stable it is. The conclusion we got is not if the theory is right or wrong if we see this pattern. Suppose it is still possible to unclog this. First, we make sure everybody got enough ink. First of all, we start with a Priming Clip. This is effective if some air bubbles are blocking the nozzles.
We can see the color is close to black, which means all three nozzles can output the same amount of ink. We took a white paper towel to wipe out the excessive ink before we put it in. So you can see all three colors coming out.
The first one didn't work. Then we put it in the boiling water in case there are some tough clogs. We are going to use the heating to loosen up that clogging.
The boil doesn't work. We try the ultrasonic cleaning, and still, we're trying to loosen up the clog. If there is any clog. The ultrasonic doesn't work. The steaming doesn't work. Now I'm going to do the Vacuum. I'm going to fold the paper towel. Put some water on it, then wrap it around the cartridge. Then you do a little dab on the paper, and you should be able to see all three colors coming out. If you see any color on the first bar, you should keep trying. Yet, if you see the first bar is completely missing and the second bar is perfect, what I can tell you is it is tough to unclog.