Bringing a dried up printer back to life

[cmburns]

I bought an IPF6100 around 2008. Printed a few things on it. Then went on a big trip, then moved houses, several more big trips, moved again, kids etc.. I'm finally getting to a point where I will have the time to print, so I took the blanket off the printer, and tried to get it to go. Of course I got an error. I figured the printheads would be clogged, I already have a couple more new ones. What I didn't count on was the lines leading from the tanks to printheads being dried up.
Is it possible to take these lines off and flush them with solvent, buy some inks and be back in business?
Or can I go to the hardware store and buy replacement hose, cut it and be good to go?
Final question, I've seen some videos where people pump some stuff through clogged printheads and bring them back. Has anyone ever tried putting one in an ultrasonic cleaner?

[mearussi]

I just bought a used ipf6400 for $400 off of Craigslist. For the amount of money you're looking to invest into resurrecting your old printer you'd be better off just buying a good used one that fully works.

[Asael]

It's a gamble only you can decide if you want to take.
I have an IPF8300 that I love, but I just came back from a long vacation to find that one of the print heads died when I was away...
I replaced the head, and we are back in business.

(from my experience the Canons are much better than the Epsons when left unused for a while, but I hear that HP is even better...)

[Doug Gray]

My 9800, which is around 12 years old, went through a period of over 5 years with no usage. Thought it dead but bought new inks anyway. I softened the ink in the head with a solvent and paper towels. Ran several full head cleaning cycles, and it's been good as new ever since.

So don't give up on your printer.

[Dan Wells]

Also note (in favor of a good used iPF 6400 or a new Pro-2000) that the 6100 is rapidly becoming undriveable. There is no driver for the most recent two (or three?) versions of MacOS, and the Windows driver is no longer being updated. I'm a Mac user, but what I've heard is that the old driver still works on the Windows side, but will break if Microsoft does anything to printing, and Canon is very unlikely to update it...

[Richard Man]

My 9800, which is around 12 years old, went through a period of over 5 years with no usage. Thought it dead but bought new inks anyway. I softened the ink in the head with a solvent and paper towels. Ran several full head cleaning cycles, and it's been good as new ever since.

Doug: How do you soften the ink in the head? I have a persistent clog in the green ink. Tried "everything" to no avail.

[Doug Gray]

Doug: How do you soften the ink in the head? I have a persistent clog in the green ink. Tried "everything" to no avail.

Used a product called "Magic Bullet" which seems to be mostly ammonia and maybe a bit of some sort of alcohol. Worked well on the 9800's head but may not be appropriate for different head tech. Check to see if it's ok for your printer. They have a video on their site.

[Richard Man]

Thanks

[deanwork]

This fluid is the safest and best there is. It can dissolve dried ink. Buy the empty cart for the channel in question fill it with this pink fluid and do a couple of power cleanings with a nozzle check in between. Then leave it in the system for at least 24 hours . Then do one or two more power cleans if necessary. If this doesn’t work I would have the dampers and cleaning station ( capping station ) replaced before considering a new head. Generally if you are not seeing deflected nozzles ( bent zozzle check lines ) the head can be saved.

Usually when printers are left idle the capping station sponges dry out become brittle and the head channels don’t fit, giving bad ineffective nozzle cleaning pressure. I dampen my cap station with distilled water once a week, and this helps tremendously so you could attemp that first.

Ammonia will destroy the coating on modern print heads. Stay away from that. PiezoFlush has no ammonia involved.

John

https://shop.inkjetmall.com/About/What-is-PiezoFlush/

Thanks

[Doug Gray]

This fluid is the safest and best there is. It can dissolve dried ink. Buy the empty cart for the channel in question fill it with this pink fluid and do a couple of power cleanings with a nozzle check in between. Then leave it in the system for at least 24 hours . Then do one or two more power cleans if necessary. If this doesn’t work I would have the dampers and cleaning station ( capping station ) replaced before considering a new head. Generally if you are not seeing deflected nozzles ( bent zozzle check lines ) the head can be saved.

Usually when printers are left idle the capping station sponges dry out become brittle and the head channels don’t fit, giving bad ineffective nozzle cleaning pressure. I dampen my cap station with distilled water once a week, and this helps tremendously so you could attemp that first.

Ammonia will destroy the coating on modern print heads. Stay away from that. PiezoFlush has no ammonia involved.

John

https://shop.inkjetmall.com/About/What-is-PiezoFlush/

I've heard that one should stay away from ammonia based solvents for newer printers. So that's likely good advice for modern printers. I don't know what printer Richard has but one should always research cleaning techniques specific to their printers. Printers vary in ways they can fail.

OTOH, for the 9800, it was only the inkjets, not ink lines, that were clogged. Even after 5 years. It required setting a wetted paper towel against the head for a few hours then a few deep clean cycles which flushed the lines with new ink and it's been good as new ever since.

[deanwork]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=m8NkgKw7mDw


This works for me in extreme cases. Bounty paper towels.




OTOH, for the 9800, it was only the inkjets, not ink lines, that were clogged. Even after 5 years. It required setting a wetted paper towel against the head for a few hours then a few deep clean cycles which flushed the lines with new ink and it's been good as new ever since.
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[D White]

You may need the services of Mr Smith and Mr Wesson.

[Clearair]

I still run a lightly used iPF6100 and do so exclusively using Mavrick OS and PS5 with said Canon print plugin. This resides nicely on a seperate partion and is also backed up. It is only used for printing. I keep all sorts of app/OS and my active OS list is the last three. My Mac Pro tower will not run anything more recent than El Crappytan but that does not make me cry like a baby. it will be the perfect hedge and archival device. That and the Pelican case full of high grade Blue Ray discs. Yes all right but I like them. My  Olympus OMD E1 11 files are converted using Adobe DNG so that I can use Aperture. This will be my DAM until something EVEN close comes my way. I will of course try other raw development tools. In short don't throw it away and be a slave to software racing for the sake of it. Raw is not the digital negative after all??

[Clearair]

I meant Mavericks OS and was replying to Dan Wells re keeping this printer running.