Very badly out of alignment

[meadowcat]

I have a Pixma MX452 that is very badly aligned. Automatic alignment does not correct it. Manual alignment gives me the black column F with all rectangles showing every other line a quarter inch left or right of the following line.

It looks like:    XXXXXXX

                              XXXXXXX

                       XXXXXXX

                              XXXXXXX

                       XXXXXXX

The printed numbers are overwritten by parts of the rectangles.

Column K is similar but with the lines oriented a bit differently. The other columns have more or less rectangular boxes, some a little off, but not perfect, . Entering the numbers requested for malual alignment does not seem to help, but I am just guessing at which rectangle looks the least bad since all are so far off.  What should I do?

[Patrick]

Hi meadowcat,

Please try cleaning the encoder inside of your PIXMA MX452:

https://support.usa.canon.com/kb/index?page=content&id=ART142915

[meadowcat · Accepted solution]

At first, the encoder film appeared to be clean, I was expecting dark ink smudges. However, on closer examination in bright light, I did see light smears. I cleaned the film as instructed, very carefully to a perfectly clear film, re-aligned the heads manually, and now printing looks perfect. Thank you!!