- Joined
- Sep 23, 2017
- Messages
- 47
A couple of days ago my Pixma Pro 100s started leaving black "track marks" on the right-hand side of the print media (right-hand side when looking at the printer, so from the side the of the power button etc). I thought it might be a printhead head issue so I removed the head yesterday and did a thorough clean using some cleaning fluid for the head, lines etc, and also made sure to clean off any ink from the plastic body of the head. Also cleaned as much of the carriage (that the printer head sits in) inside the printer as well.
I set the printer back up this morning and it seems to have made no difference at all, the track marks came back straight away and if anything seem to be getting worse.
I've had "Prevent paper abrasion" set to ON for months now so this isn't available as a solution. I also don't think it's the pinch wheels or anything similar as I jammed a pen-lid into the safety hole that stops the printer working when the cover is open so I could see inside when it was printing. The smudges start to appear on the media as it's being printed, not as it's fed into the printer by the pinch wheels. This is why I thought it was an issue with the printhead.
I'm not really sure what's causing it to be honest so hoping someone can shed some light. I have a few spare new printheads but given I've just cleaned this one completely and it started doing it again straight away, I'm not convinved that's the issue. The printer is quite old, about 5 years now I think, and I've used it a LOT, so maybe it's just got so much ink sprayed around inside it that it's always going to do this now? Anyway I hope not and there's a solution to it.
All I can really determine is it that it's worse with thicker materials. The top images below is a cotton canvas type material, it's not super-thick but is thicker than most paper. I always get lines on this. The material in the picture at the bottom is regular glossy photopaper and there are no marks on this. Using a pair of accurate digital callipers, the canvas type material is 0.4mm thick, the paper is 0.2mm thick, so the canvas is thicker by 0.2mm....not a huge amount but seemingly enough to make a difference!
I set the printer back up this morning and it seems to have made no difference at all, the track marks came back straight away and if anything seem to be getting worse.
I've had "Prevent paper abrasion" set to ON for months now so this isn't available as a solution. I also don't think it's the pinch wheels or anything similar as I jammed a pen-lid into the safety hole that stops the printer working when the cover is open so I could see inside when it was printing. The smudges start to appear on the media as it's being printed, not as it's fed into the printer by the pinch wheels. This is why I thought it was an issue with the printhead.
I'm not really sure what's causing it to be honest so hoping someone can shed some light. I have a few spare new printheads but given I've just cleaned this one completely and it started doing it again straight away, I'm not convinved that's the issue. The printer is quite old, about 5 years now I think, and I've used it a LOT, so maybe it's just got so much ink sprayed around inside it that it's always going to do this now? Anyway I hope not and there's a solution to it.
All I can really determine is it that it's worse with thicker materials. The top images below is a cotton canvas type material, it's not super-thick but is thicker than most paper. I always get lines on this. The material in the picture at the bottom is regular glossy photopaper and there are no marks on this. Using a pair of accurate digital callipers, the canvas type material is 0.4mm thick, the paper is 0.2mm thick, so the canvas is thicker by 0.2mm....not a huge amount but seemingly enough to make a difference!
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