Cleaning cycles on Prograf-2000

[D White]

Hi,

I love my Canon Prograf-2000 that replaced a dead Epson 7900. It just prints without constantly having to micro monitor for missing nozzles as I was forced to do with the Epson. Printing is now fun the way it should have been and my costs in bottles of single malt scotch has gone way down.

But I want to understand better what cleaning the Canon is doing in the background. I have noticed that there are initial cycles on start up if not used for several days, longer cycles if left for say a week. I also travel for several months at a time a few times a year. One such trip in a week coming up.

A search on the net gave opinions that the Canon has timed cleanings whether it needs it or not. I pieced together opinions that there is a cycle programmed in after 60 hours of idle, a more aggressive clean after about a week, and a mother of all cleans in about a month using 50ml of ink. I did notice after a week that the cycle seems definitely longer.

Any confirmation on what is happening, are there timed cleaning cycles regardless of actual need. Is there a way to leave it with some roll paper to print something say every 48 hours to keep the timed cycles at bay?

Regards

[Mark D Segal]

Advice I've received from Canon for the Pro-1000, which I suspect would be also applicable to the Pro-2000 and Pro-4000 (same printhead and inkset) is to leave the printer on all the time it is not being used. According to Canon, it consumes very little electricity and will trigger periodic maintenance automatically, which consumes far less ink than if it were activated after a long period of non-use.

[Landscapes]

My experience is with the Canon iPF6400, so it may, or may not apply, but I think chances are that its similar.

I noticed that if I don't print for 2-3 days, whenever it does start up, it wants to do a clean cycle.  Using the excellent Prograf Status Monitor, I'm able to see exactly how much ink is used if I monitor it closesly.  (ie.  make a note of how much ink was used in total the last time I used the printer, and then look at the new total after it runs the clean cycle).  I found that its about 14ml.  This is the only type of clean cycle I have ever done.  I know that from the menu, there is the option for clean A or B, so I assume clean A is this first cycle.

Now if I have not printed within 3 days, I don't want it to waste all that ink, so what I do is wake it up from sleep mode and shut it down.  Then I start up in Service Mode, and do a nozzle check from the Service Menu that shows all the nozzles.  It shows me of course if there are any clogs, but what I'm mot interested in is having the printing think its been printing.  Then when I turn it off and start back in regular mode, it won't have to do a clean cycle because it would have known it just made a print.

I have also tried to do just regular nozzle checks every 2 days (without going into service mode), and this has the same action of doing a print, but after maybe about 2, it still realizes that it hasn't exactly done a print so it wants to clean.  So the rule is try to do a print every couple of days, or at least a nozzle check, but sometimes you just gotta go into the service mode to get the clock to really reset into thinking a print has been done.

I have come back after the printer is off for a week, started up in service mode, did my nozzle 1 check from the service menu, noticed maybe a clog here or there, but did nothing about it.  Simply turned it off to exit the service menu, and then turned back on into the regular mode so I could print.  It didn't do a forced clean since I figure the counter/timer was tagged as just having done a print.

Now certainly if you see lots of nozzles clogged, then running a clean cycle isn't a bad idea.  But after the printer has been sitting for just a few days, in most cases the nozzles are fine, and wasting 14ml of ink is quite a bit, and could be easily $7 or $8 minimum depending on the size of ink carts you use.  That same 14ml of ink goes a long way to making prints.  Its actually more cost effective to just print something every few days, especially on cheap paper, rather then running into trouble and having to do that clean cycle.

I also just replaced the printheads a week ago, and got exactly 2 years out of them, so what I'm doing can't be that bad.

[MHMG]

Advice I've received from Canon for the Pro-1000, which I suspect would be also applicable to the Pro-2000 and Pro-4000 (same printhead and inkset) is to leave the printer on all the time it is not being used. According to Canon, it consumes very little electricity and will trigger periodic maintenance automatically, which consumes far less ink than if it were activated after a long period of non-use.

In light of Canon's advice, it seems contradictory that Canon's Pro-1000 default power mode behavior is to turn the printer off after a few hours of non use. It may not be a full-off condition like pulling the plug, but my Pro-1000 never wakes from that mode to perform any regular maintenance that i've ever been able to document, thus this printer's default power saving settings are not living up to the above cited recommendation.  One would obviously need to go into the power saving setting menu and alter the setting manually. How many users would ever discover it might be economically beneficial to override a default setting that otherwise by design does save energy?

kind regards,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com

[Mark D Segal]

In light of Canon's advice, it seems contradictory that Canon's Pro-1000 default power mode behavior is to turn the printer off after a few hours of non use. It may not be a full-off condition like pulling the plug, but my Pro-1000 never wakes from that mode to perform any regular maintenance that i've ever been able to document, thus this printer's default power saving settings are not living up to the above cited recommendation.  One would obviously need to go into the power saving setting menu and alter the setting manually. How many users would ever discover it might be economically beneficial to override a default setting that otherwise by design does save energy?

kind regards,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com

Defaults of course are one package of settings designed with whatever the engineers had in mind when they designed them, and users can readily change them by going into the menus and doing what one wants for the purpose one wants it. I can't fuss over this - I just reported what technical staff recommended to me. I'll see how this works out over the next while with periodic printing. So far I too have no evidence of it waking-up to self-maintain, and I did enable the settings to allow for this - but it's only been several days on this new regime, so we'll see.