Life of Canon IPF Heads

[deanwork]

I talked to a support guy at Canon today to straighten out a pesky error message that turned out to be nothing.

He was really helpful and as with all other calls they didn't charge me a dime though I've been out of warranty for two years.

While on the phone I asked him, well how long would you expect these heads to last in general? He said something interesting to me. He said they should last between 1 and 3 years in general. Then he said the more you use the printer the longer they should last in his experience.

Has anyone else heard this from Canon people? Maybe those nozzles keep cleaner and in better condition if something is going through them on a daily basis. With my HP thermal heads it doesn't seem to matter whether I'm using the printer or not, they just last a long time regardless and I never do manual head cleanings.

John

[David Sutton]

My ipf6300 used to be quite happy with irregular use, as long as I left it powered on. Now I'm in a much drier climate and even with a bowl of water underneath it will go through a head check and cleaning cycle if I leave it go more than 7 days. So I make sure I run a test print through every 5 or 6 days that works all the nozzles. Alternating matte and photo black.
When I moved here I left it idle for 4 months and even with all the ink drained out for shifting, both heads failed when I restarted it. Fortunately Canon helped out with a credit on one of the replacements.
I wish there was something like Apple's Keyboard Maestro for Windows that could be programmed to start up Lightroom and run a print through every 5 days and shut the computer down again.
David

Edit: Here's how to do it on a Mac: http://www.martinbaileyphotography.com/2014/11/17/prevent-printer-head-cleaning-with-automation-podcast-448/

[Phil Indeblanc]

Or just have a large enough humidor to put the printer in with the cigars! At $425-450 EACH x2 that doesn't sound like such a great thing to look forward to. Even at $60+ per pair of heads on the HP, there are 6 and all replaced is less.

[Czornyj]

I can confirm it from my experience - my friends and clients who use iPF infrequently change heads on annual basis rather than after 2-3 years periods.
I suppose it may have something to do with the fact, that iPF wipes the heads with silicone before parking them on capping station to prevent nozzles from drying. The more frequent printing, the less chances for heads to dry out.

[Pete Berry]

I can confirm it from my experience - my friends and clients who use iPF infrequently change heads on annual basis rather than after 2-3 years periods.
I suppose it may have something to do with the fact, that iPF wipes the heads with silicone before parking them on capping station to prevent nozzles from drying. The more frequent printing, the less chances for heads to dry out.

Certainly not my experience with three iPF printers over the past eight years, with moderate use including weeks of no printing. If this were true, there would be a hue and cry on the Canon LFP Wiki and calls for a class-action suit, which there hasn't been.

Pete

[chez]

Certainly not my experience with three iPF printers over the past eight years, with moderate use including weeks of no printing. If this were true, there would be a hue and cry on the Canon LFP Wiki and calls for a class-action suit, which there hasn't been.

Pete

I'm sure humidity levels have a lot to do with the heads longevity.

[deanwork]

You know after updating the recent firmware I don't notice my 8300 turning itself on and monitoring the heads a few times a day like it used to. Is something turned off that I should turn back on? My Hp wakes up several times a day and does the head monitoring.

john

[brntoki]

My ipf6300 used to be quite happy with irregular use, as long as I left it powered on. Now I'm in a much drier climate and even with a bowl of water underneath it will go through a head check and cleaning cycle if I leave it go more than 7 days. So I make sure I run a test print through every 5 or 6 days that works all the nozzles. Alternating matte and photo black.
When I moved here I left it idle for 4 months and even with all the ink drained out for shifting, both heads failed when I restarted it. Fortunately Canon helped out with a credit on one of the replacements.
I wish there was something like Apple's Keyboard Maestro for Windows that could be programmed to start up Lightroom and run a print through every 5 days and shut the computer down again.
David

Edit: Here's how to do it on a Mac: http://www.martinbaileyphotography.com/2014/11/17/prevent-printer-head-cleaning-with-automation-podcast-448/

David, I've not used it yet, however Qimage has that ability as far as I know. I should get to know it because I'm always worried about my Epson gunking up on me. (Think I'm gonna set that up tomorrow, in fact. I'll try to remember to chime in with how it works.)

[Duncan Staples]

Dean:

I have owned both the IPF8000 and IPF9000 for about 4 years now and I can comment from first hand experience that the printers are made to be used.

It is kind of like a car.  If you don't use it much, small quirky, annoying issues pop up.

Even when I would take a vacation and would be gone for more than 30 days, I would access both servers remotely and print about 5 small prints each to avoid the pigments from clogging the nozzles.

Nozzle clogging is the most common problem with little to no use.

Regards,
Duncan Staples

[Paris1968]

It is quirky and unpredictable.  I bought a 6200 when they first came out about seven years ago.  Three years later, I bought a 6300.  There were times when the 6200 wasn't used for weeks. Once, it went for five months without use, but I never had a problem of any kind with the print heads. I used the 6300 almost continuously, certainly putting twenty rolls of paper through it.  I kept both printers powered up all the time. Last year, the print heads in the 6300 failed, and I replaced them, a job done easily and quickly.  I'm not sure what, if any, lessons can be drawn from this, except that Canon print heads do not need to be replaced once a year, regardless of whether the printer is used frequently or not.

[David Sutton]

David, I've not used it yet, however Qimage has that ability as far as I know. I should get to know it because I'm always worried about my Epson gunking up on me. (Think I'm gonna set that up tomorrow, in fact. I'll try to remember to chime in with how it works.)

Hi Brntoki.
I've used the Qimage head clean routine, and it works very well, probably better than my test print. Easy to set up as well.
What I'm looking for is a program to start up my computer every 5 days and open Qimage or Lightroom and send the head clean print to the 6300 (which starts up out of sleep mode when a file is sent to it) and then shut the computer down again.
It's not just that I've moved to a dry climate, but also this house has a DVS fitted. Unbelievably dry interior. Regular printing is the simplest solution.

[Pete Berry]

I'm sure humidity levels have a lot to do with the heads longevity.

If this were true, as it is in Epson's which have actual nozzle ink clogs, forced cleanings should have some effect. In a total of four head failures (2 sets) over eight years, forced reg. and intense cleaning cycles showed not a whit of change on the nozzle check print. A Canon tech once told me that if a single reg. cleaning didn't solve it, more is just a waste of ink.

This fact makes it clear to me that the thermal nozzles fail mainly by electrical burnout/shorting - and when too many have failed rising head temperatures will force shutdown.

I'd be interested to know if any iPF users have successfully cleared nozzle problems/head failure messages with cleaning cycles.

Pete

[Landscapes]

I'd be interested to know if any iPF users have successfully cleared nozzle problems/head failure messages with cleaning cycles.

Whenever I got the message on my 6100 to do a clean on the R or L printhead and if that doesn't work to replace it, doing a clean never worked.  What really sucks is that it prints perfectly the previous day, and then bam... this message pops up and you're toast without having a new head handy.  Its unfortunate that the printer can't report to you how many nozzles are clogged and how many more can be remapped.  I imagine it knows this number and hence why it goes from being ok one day to completely dead.  So in my experience, once I got the message to replace the head, trying to do a clean only wasted ink and time.

[Geraldo Garcia]

Whenever I got the message on my 6100 to do a clean on the R or L printhead and if that doesn't work to replace it, doing a clean never worked.  What really sucks is that it prints perfectly the previous day, and then bam... this message pops up and you're toast without having a new head handy.  Its unfortunate that the printer can't report to you how many nozzles are clogged and how many more can be remapped.  I imagine it knows this number and hence why it goes from being ok one day to completely dead.  So in my experience, once I got the message to replace the head, trying to do a clean only wasted ink and time.

True, the printer does not tell you how many nozzles are actually dead/clogged but there is a way to extract that information manually. The regular nozzle check print uses only the already remapped nozzles so it is always "ok" until you have no more nozzles to remap and then you are already busted. But the nozzle check print done in the service mode tries to use all the nozzles so it can give you a rough idea of how many are clogged/dead (unfortunately it does not tell you how many are left to remap), but it is better than nothing.

[deanwork]

Yes, this week. I was getting an error message that related to head overheating. I couldn't restart and do a cleaning. The Canon rep had me go into the service menu, by holding down the Feed-Navigate-Power buttons simultaneously. Then I was able to do a head cleaning. It went through three cleaning cycles. Then I restarted and all was fine.

The tech said the error was most likely the result of a curled roll of paper jamming against the head and causing the head head to overheat. I was toward the end of the roll of Hahnemuhle Pearl and it was curling pretty tightly. But I did not experience a paper jam and there was nothing lodged in the print feed area when I looked in the there with a flash light. 

My prints are looking perfect now but I do suspect that I am coming toward the end of one of the head's life. Maybe.

I can't confirm this for sure, but I believe that the more cleaning cycles the printer does after or before a new job the closer
 you are to the end of a head.  I've seen this before. It seems like when you have three cleaning cycles in a row with the auto nozzle checks between then you might well be nearing that point, and I am there. But I could be totally wrong and these heads could last another year.

I'll report back if one finally fails.

John



I'd be interested to know if any iPF users have successfully cleared nozzle problems/head failure messages with cleaning cycles.

Pete


[/quote]

[brntoki]

Hi Brntoki.
I've used the Qimage head clean routine, and it works very well, probably better than my test print. Easy to set up as well.
What I'm looking for is a program to start up my computer every 5 days and open Qimage or Lightroom and send the head clean print to the 6300 (which starts up out of sleep mode when a file is sent to it) and then shut the computer down again.
It's not just that I've moved to a dry climate, but also this house has a DVS fitted. Unbelievably dry interior. Regular printing is the simplest solution.

Ah! Now I see your problem. Hard to believe there isn't something readily available to do this. There must be many good uses for a program like that. How much googling have you done?

[David Sutton]

Ah! Now I see your problem. Hard to believe there isn't something readily available to do this. There must be many good uses for a program like that. How much googling have you done?

A  lot of googling. I think it would be a matter of downloading trial versions of the Windows equivalent of Keyboard Maestro and seeing if it could be made to work. A project for the winter months I think. Here in the south of NZ it's not dark until 10 pm and I hear the twin siren calls of gardening and getting my camera out in the golden hour.

[acktdi]

The right print head on my IPF8400 just died after 2 years of service.  I make a few prints every couple months and leave the printer turned off after use, so my volume is close to zero.

[deanwork]

My problem with all these various error messages turned out to be the right print head needed replacing. It doesn't just tell you to replace the head, but can start giving you all kinds of error numbers that could relate to other things but is almost always a head that needs replacing. The tech guy at Canon was very helpful. It does turn out that with the latest firmware the printer does not turn itself on frequently and do nozzle checks and needed cleaning as it used to.

The Canon guy recommended doing a nozzle check once a week so the printer can clean any needed nozzles and prolong the life of the head. He said that alone should double the life of the head.

He also suggested periodically printing out the head evaluation target from the printer menu every couple of weeks and keep an eye on the state of all the nozzles so you won't be surprised when they finally all give out. This also will allow you to have a head replaced free of charge if it is still in warranty.

[alan a]

True, the printer does not tell you how many nozzles are actually dead/clogged but there is a way to extract that information manually. The regular nozzle check print uses only the already remapped nozzles so it is always "ok" until you have no more nozzles to remap and then you are already busted. But the nozzle check print done in the service mode tries to use all the nozzles so it can give you a rough idea of how many are clogged/dead (unfortunately it does not tell you how many are left to remap), but it is better than nothing.

Geraldo,

Thanks in advance for your response to the following question. How do you access the service mode on the Canon 8400 to perform the nozzle check that you describe, that better shows how many nozzles are left on the printhead?

And a question for everyone. When you lose a printhead, is it your experience that you lose both heads simultaneously, or just one at a time? 

Given the inconvenience of losing a printhead at a time when you need to do some printing, do all of you keep one or two spare printheads on the assumption that in any one to five-year period of time, you'll have to do a replacement?  If so, referring to my first question, do you keep one or two spare printheads on hand?