Canon iPF 8300 printer head woes again.

[routlaw]

Anyone ever had the gumption to try changing the printer heads without going through the purge and refill which tosses what has to be at least a few hundreds of dollars in ink? I am about to embark on my 3rd printer head change in less than two years for this printer and would like to a do a short cut. Its easy enough to move the printer heads and take them in and out but what about actually exchanging without the purge/refill? Its not clear to me why one would have to do this anyway.

Thanks in advance

[deanwork]

Who told you it was a few hundred dollars worth of ink? I just replaced one a couple of hours ago and it went fast, about the same amount of time as deep head cleaning. I didn't see my levels go down during the head replacement. What did waste ink for me was doing nozzle checks that did unnecessary cleaning if one of your nozzles is bad.

[routlaw]

As stated above having gone through this a few times already it was painfully obvious a significant amount of ink was lost and in at least one case it filled up my maintenance tank. This is pretty well documented by others who have had to replace their heads as well. Each time I have replaced a printer head the process becomes quite lengthy compared to a head cleaning as well. Perhaps you went about your printer head replacement in a different manner?

[deanwork]

I don't know. It was super easy for me yesterday. I followed the directions in the menu like I did before. It removed the ink from the head that took about 1 minute then  I popped it out.. I put the new head in, it filled with ink, about another minute. After that I did a quick calibration and when back to work.  I didn't see my ink levels go down and my maintenance tank is fine. If you were at the end of your maintenance tank you would need to put a new one in though. You know you can buy a chip resetter for these waste tanks.

I do absolutely think these heads should last longer like the HP thermal heads do. My HP heads last at the very least twice as long BUT there are 6 of them. And that is a good thing. With the Canon heads if you have one little channel with no more nozzles, like my light cyan in this case, you have to throw away the whole had. That is another thing that HP did right, make inexpensive yet durable print heads that can be replaced with the loss of no ink at all. And, the HP waste tanks never seem to fill up, ever. Mine keeps going and going and going. Very little ink wasted on the HP. Their mechanism keeps the heads clean continually without waste. Another thing they deserve credit for.

If they can't make these Canon heads last longer they need to bring the price way down to about $200.00 in my opinion or they are going to start pissing a lot of people off. The reason I'm not fired up complaining about that is that they replaced both of mine for free overnight and their phone support was stellar. If they didn't replace them with no questions asked I would not be happy about it at all. And yes, if these heads are only lasting one year, that is not good. Lets all let Canon know how we feel about that.

[Jeff Magidson]

John and others:

Is there any way to tell how much life a Canon IPF 8300 head has left or what the condition of the head is in?

~ Jeff

[deanwork]

Jeff,

I'd like to know that myself. It think part of it depends on how many prints, and of what color are being printed, and on what kind of media, so that could get complicated. Another factor is how many cleanings are having to be done with a particular printer in a particular environment.

 If you turn off your printer regularly it seems to have to do a lot more deep cleanings which isn't good for them. I get paranoid and totally unplug my printers for every thunderstorm and that couldn't  be good, but I just don't trust surge protectors with the kind of lightning storms we have.

The new Epson's and the HP have pair cleaning software but not Canon. So, every time your printer is doing a cleaning cycle all the channels are using ink. That is my understanding. If I'm wrong about that I like to know what is going on in the black box. The more automatic these printers become the less I understand about the way they work.

[bill t.]

This is weird!  I've replaced several heads and it has never used more than a trivial amount of ink.

Could this have something to do with old firmware?  I have always done the head changes strictly at the printer, through the printer firmware.  But I know it can also be done through the computer, I wonder if that leads to a different and more wasteful procedure?

I don't have the printer where I am now, but it is possible to create an overall status report file that tells you how many days the printer and the heads have been in use.  The report also contains recent error codes, some of which pertain to print heads which have almost used up their full alternate nozzle allotment.  For instance, on one tech support calls the tech commented based on error codes that the "other" head was getting near the end of its useful lifetime.

But basically, if the printer starts doing head checks and/or cleaning cycles at the end of more than very widely spaced printing cycles, you need to be thinking about head conditions.

You can find a lot of use 8300 maintenance information on the Canon Wiki page...

http://canonipf.wikispaces.com/

BUT BE CAREFUL, sometimes it's not clear whether the wiki info refers to the 8300 or, for instance, the old iPF5000 which apparently does have a rather wasteful head change procedure.

[deanwork]

I think your right. When the printer starts to do a "Nozzle Check" procedure often  you are most likely going to be replacing a head so get ready.

Since you've replaced several heads, how long on average are they lasting you? I'd like to know what the consensus is on that for the 8300.

john

[bill t.]

In the most practical terms I can think of, my best guess based on experience is something between 3000 and 8000 square feet of media for each head.  So that's roughly 37 to 100, 24" rolls.  So after somewhere between 6000 and 16000 square feet I would expect to have replaced both heads.  And that's with almost 100% canvas, which is not your cleanest or most strike-free media.

But I thrash my 8300 on a daily basis, which I think might be good for head longevity.  And I had one head that lasted almost 3 times Canon's "normal" estimate, which I believe they consider to be 1 trillion dots.  That's more than my mechanical hand counter can record.

BTW Canon's tech support is so incredibly good I feel moved to mention that most of my head changes have been at no charge to me.

[deanwork]

A trillion dots ain't bad.


Me too. I'm impressed. Let's hope once they get some of this market share that will continue. It's pretty rare in this business and if they keep it up it will help them for sure.




BTW Canon's tech support is so incredibly good I feel moved to mention that most of my head changes have been at no charge to me.
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[Wayne Fox]

Life of canon and HP heads is quite variable. Excessive ozzle clogs which require remapping to spare nozzles can result from the same circumstances as Epson printers , notably low usage and dry conditions. The nozzles do experience wear so heavy usage will still wear out a head but just like Epson printers which will require more cleaning in dry conditions or with sporadic use head life can be dramatically shortened.