Why do Canon (perhaps other) clean before a print.. Ahh!!!!

[bignose2]

Hi,

New to Forum & shame first post is a rant but this has finially driven me so crazy I had to write something.

I have had Canon Printers (Epson long time ago) I do like the quality but the auto cleaning is driving me up the wall.

Current MG6250 MFP, so not a cheap, others included ip4500, ip5200 & more.

Why Oh Why does it have to clean itself so often but more importantly at the worst & most stupid times possible.

Firstly, Sometimes before printing. I want to print a quick page & give to someone to take with me, it decides to do a clean, It might only be 20 or so seconds but I want it now!
OK it might only do this pre-print clean once or twice a day or perhaps less but there seems no pattern. I could understand if I have not used the printer for a few days but I could have been using all morning, left an hour & come back.
If it clogs or poor print I can clean it when I want.

Secondly, After every print, I did time once but can't remember about 40 seconds.
Whatever the time it is, it is the exact, perfect time to coinside with when I want to print another page.
Whether scanning & printing a page, Scanning another or simply printing checking & print again. It almost without fail is when the printer starts its clean.
I would laugh if it was not so frustrating but it is uncanny how it is always when you don't want it. It is not my imagination, I make a point of remembering when it does NOT do this and it is very rare.

OK, again this might be the perfect time to prevent ink drying but never had problem when it did not do this and I would much rather put up with a enforced clean every now & again.

I use to think it used a lot of ink but thankfully don't think it does but must have some effect.

I fully understand it needs to keep itself clean & perhaps if it did not we might moan that quality is compromised but i don't remember this being a problem with other printers that did not do this & it is being used every day with minimal down time. It is unlikely to clog that bad a standard clean won't clear.
Of course automatic ink consumption is not a bad thing as far as some parties are concerned.

Also, wonder if anyone else has this problem, but screen goes crazy & then blank every now & again, simple on/off does not fix, usually unplug & leave few minutes fixes it. ca't be bothers to try repair, out of warrant now.

 

[Laser Tek]

Hi Bignose2:

You can try any of these options:
1. Replace the formatter board
2. Update printer's firmware
3. Change the type setting for the paper tray from "Plain" to other format (i.e. heavy, light)

 

[l_d_allan]

Overall, I don't think it is as bad as you perceive.

I've got several Canon printers (9000-2, iP4500, MX4500, MP990), and have done a fair amount of timings, cartridge weighing with calibrated electronic scales, and correspondence with Canon to try to better understand what is going with all the whirring and buzzing and clanking between prints.

My impression is that quite a bit of the sounds that seem to be cleaning are really related to positioning the print-head ... "just so". That is especially the case if there is a delay between making prints, so the print-head is parked.

Geek Alert ... TMI ?

I've looked at shop manuals for several printers, and the "decision tree" that the print driver uses for when a minor, moderate, or major cleaning are done is pretty well defined.

Note that usage and cleanings can go WAY UP if you've turned off ink level monitoring, open the cover too often, swap out carts whenever one gets LOW, swap out print-heads, etc.

Out of curiosity, I spent several days carefully weighing 100's of cartridges as I put them in, did series of nozzle checks between weighing, series of 1-2 letter size prints between weighings, series of 20+ letter size prints at a time between weighings, etc.

(I was also trying to get a much better idea of ink usage at LOW, at EMPTY, at REALLY EMPTY. Also how much ink really remained. Also how different printers detected LOW and EMPTY with or without the optical prism ... interesting / geeky stuff).

Overall, I ended up rather impressed at how Canon managed ink usage. I started off similar to you ... "darn that Canon wasting all my ink with constant, unnecessary head cleaning".

I admit to being ignorant about HP / Epson / Dell / Brother / etc.