canon pixma mg3620 Printing dotted, but alignment pattern clean

[Serenstar75]

Hi, my canon pixma mg3620 isn’t that old, likely not even a year. I use it for stickers. For a bit it would occasionally print one bit of a page a bit dotty or “pixelated.” 300dpi high quality. I got new canon ink from Walmart. The black prints great. The issue is color printing. I did the alignment and that page prints beautifully and all appears aligned. 

the nozzle check prints terribly in color. i did the cleaning 3 times and deep cleaning once. The alignment page still prints in great quality and the nozzle checks are horrible. The images printed look like old dotty prints not smooth. It didn’t say what to do if cleaning and deep cleaning aren’t working. Is it likely nozzles or could I have gotten hold of bad ink? I can’t figure out what to do to change this or resolve the issue. 

[ArthurJ]

Hi,

Since the cleanings did not resolve the nozzle checks, the printer will require service. 

If the printer is in it's 1 year warranty, I recommend reaching out to Canon support for your warranty options. You will need to register your Canon gear HERE to access additional support options.

If the printer is out of warranty, you would qualify for the Canon Upgrade program. This is for out of warranty units which have been diagnosed to require service or are incompatible with a new or upgraded system. This program allows you the opportunity to purchase a replacement product discounted from the list price. Free ground shipping is included with your purchase.

If you would like to take advantage of this offer, please call our Sales Department at (866) 443-8002 Mon-Sat, 9 AM to 9pm EST excluding holidays.

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[Serenstar75 · Accepted solution]

Thank you very much. Luckily I found a fix. If only my cutter worked so easily.

I had to get things printed for an order,  so I started hunting for answers or things to try. I was even thinking of getting a new ink cartridge. So what ended up happening in this situation, and I don’t know why the patterns printed correctly when nothing else worked and nozzle check was terrible, was I took the ink cartridge out to see if I could check the head of the nozzle on the cartridge itself. I was able to gently clean that manually which I couldn’t find as an answer from Canon. I may have missed it. 

Ink cartridge is $25 thereabouts. So it was worth checking. It ended up having visible debris. In this case, some sort of paper piece was across the ink output portion of the cartridge. I think sometimes we need to go back to our basics. I learned a lot from everything I read and didn’t have to do special things other than wasting ink in cleanings. So the answer is, if the printing is faded or dotted you l may have clogged nozzles. 

Power on the machine, open the front part of the printer where you install ink so that the cartridges move into the load position. Click the thing that holds the cartridge in and take the cartridge out to visibly check for debris or paper, hair etc. . If you see that, gently remove the debris (I used tweezers to take the paper off.) Then reinstall, do a nozzle pattern check, clean if needed via the machine instructions. I didn’t see the recommendation with Canon anywhere, but I’m hoping this will help someone.

If that all doesn’t work, it sounds like Canon has pretty awesome people to help. I didn’t have to do anything that could void warranty etc. I just removed a piece of paper and it prints like butter (and then my cutter ruins the gorgeous print.)!