chaitra

Hello everyone! I am having a problem with my printer and I hope someone here can help me with it! I would be eternally grateful. I know I need a newer and better printer, but I am a grad student on a budget and can't afford one until student loan disbursal in September. TMI, I know...

For some reason, my black ink tank is not operating. I have changed it twice, thinking I possibly purchased old ink. I have done several cleanings, deep cleanings and print head adjustments. I have checked that the printer knows I changed it's cartridge. Still nothing. Any ideas??

Thanks!

Chaitra

jflan

It's sounds like the printhead is clogged at the at the inlet and/or nozzles that service the black tank (cartridge).
Assuming that colors are OK, you could try a black cleaning cartridge.
If you're in the US here is a vendor that has them for your printer:
http://www.printpal.com/partno/bci-24.html
Verify that I have the correct one queued up.

With that use a printer prime page so you can focus on the problem area of your printhead. In this case, black.
Make one up using Paint (or similar) or use this:
http://www.ink-refills-ink.com/InfoPages/1primepage.htm

Follow the instructions that come with the cleaning cartridge and avoid using Deep Clean ! This dumps a lot of ink and loads up the waste ink reservoir in your printer which is not good.

Post back and let us know how it goes.

chaitra

Thanks! I'm not sure it's clogged. When I run the pring head alignment task under maintenence, it puts black ink on the page. I think I'm going to give up the ghost and buy a printer that costs more than $60.

Thanks again!!

Chaitra

jflan

Canon printers that use the BCI-24 tanks like yours are highly sought after in some markets, even if they need repair.
So, it's possible that the old printer could help defray the cost of the new one.

Good luck and please give us a report on the new printer.

chaitra

Thanks! I will ebay it.

Chaitra

skiphos

I am having the same problem with an i470D which I purchased used recently from a person who said it was working fine when he upgraded. The test prints all come out fine with the black lines clear and dark. When I try to print text the printer seems to be printing but the sheet comes out white with no marks.

On another website, which I cannot seem to find again, someone with a Canon i70 reported a similar problem and the post was answered by many other people with the same problem. One person solved it by uninstalling and reinstalling the driver. That didn't work for me. Others had done deep cleaning, replacing the cartridge - even buying new print heads, without solving the problem. I suspect that it may be some sort of software glitch with the Canon i series.

If anyone has any ideas about this I would like to hear them. It does not seem reasonable to me that when the test print is perfect it can be a hardware problem.

jflan

Welcome to TSF

For a text job, have you tried telling it to print in Greyscale ?

Did you try drivers retrieved from Canon support or the drivers that were on the original install disk ?

FYI, this thread belongs to chaitra, so a moderator may choose to move it.