Last week at a local electronics store I bought a Pixma TS8050 (TS8020 in North America) to replace my worn out Pixma MP560.
I carefully unpacked it and meticulously completed the setup instructions. The test pattern prints looked great and print heads were aligned correctly. I subsequently downloaded the Mac TS8000 [series] print driver from Canon and installed it on my one-year-old iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 4GHz Intel Core i7). When finished I first printed some MS-Word text documents and they looked fine. Next I printed some photos in landscape layout on 80-gram A4-size paper.
Every photo print had ghostly vertical lines (horizontal lines in portrait layout) spaced about 14mm apart. The lines ran the same direction as the ink cartridges' movement (right to left and back again) and were more pronounced at the ends where the paper fed into and exited the printer. The lines appeared in any setting in Print Quality and Brightness. On 200-gram matt photo carton paper and the lines mostly disappeared, but you could still see hints (shades) of the lines if you knew what to look for. These same photos never had such an appearance from my MP560; they had always printed quite nicely. And regardless of the paper weight, such lines should not appear.
The lines looked possibly from a roller, or maybe from a faulty print head. So I did every possible cleaning: normal print head nozzle cleaning, deep cleaning, roller cleaning, bottom plate cleaning. I repeated everything, even the print head alignment. I double-checked that no packing tape was left inside the printer's mechanics. Everything looked fine: nozzles clean, perfect nozzle check patterns, head alignment okay.
Yet photo prints continued to have those vertical lines. No new printer should have such a problem, so I returned it to the electronics store. I showed the customer service technician some prints. After some inspection, he agreed the lines were a problem and he refunded my money. Afterwards I went into the store and bought a replacement Pixma TS8050.
At home, I again carefully unpacked this second new printer and carefully began the setup. But this printer would not even get to the language selection. After some rumbling the display showed: Error 5100. I opened the printer's top and looked inside. The ink cartridge tray was hung up and would not fully retract to the right side. I checked the TS8050 trouble-shooting page at Canon's Website, but to no avail. I repeated the initial setup three times, but the Error 5100 always appeared.
I returned the printer to the store. A now suspicious customer service technician inspected the printer, but he, too, experienced the same problem. He said that was not worthy of a new printer and he [again] refunded my money.
I was mad and embarrassed, yet I still wanted a TS8050 printer. But I was reluctant to go back to the same store, much less buy one face-to-face with a sales person at any store. So I ordered one from Amazon. It arrived yesterday. Again I carefully and meticulously set up the printer, thinking to myself, "This one will be perfect!"
But it wasn't. Strike three! This third new Pixma TS8050 printed the same vertical lines just like my initial purchase.
What the heck is going one here? Is this third printer also a bad fluke?
I would like to overcome this problem and avoid returning this printer. But if it cannot be solved, then I will be forced to return it to Amazon. Ironically, despite the lines, the printed photos clearly show that the gray color cartridge in this printer is a valuable asset.
(You have to download the attached photos and enlarge them to full size in order to see the lines clearly.)
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