Canon Pixma Pro-100: Some blues printing as purple or grey

[Gumdrops85]

I've been using my Pixma Pro-100 for around eight months, and have had no problems at all with the colours. However, I have recently started having issues with some (not all) shades of blue. Many of these shades are printing in purple or grey, and it seems to only be the lighter shades of blue that are printing correctly (though even those are a little different to how they should be). None of the other colours seem affected. I have tried three different sets of ink cartridges, from three different suppliers, (I use compatible ink) but the problem remains.

I've read on a couple of forums that this could be the print head, but wanted to get some advice before going out and arranging for the print head to be replaced.

I use this printer for my eBay business, and have had to remove several of my products that contain the affected blues. Any advice would be greatly appreciated as I'm now losing sales because of this.

[jrhoffman75]

Have you tried a head cleaning?

[Gumdrops85]

Hi John

Thank you for such a quick response!

I've tried every cleaning option available in the maintenance menu, and it doesn't seem to have had any effect at all. I've just taken the print head out and had a little look at it, and will try giving it a clean with distilled water at some point, but it doesn't look that dirty to be honest.

Do you have any other thoughts on what it could be?

Gary

[jrhoffman75]

Does the nozzle check look OK after you do a cleaning?

It printed OK with non-Canon inks for a while and then started this problem? No changes to your workflow or software?

[Gumdrops85]

It seems to be OK yes. And yes, I've used compatible inks from the start (albeit from different suppliers each time) and never had any major colour issues. Worklow and software is the same as it has always been. I don't think anything has changed at all. I've done around 1000 prints or so, and have never cleaned the print head, but like I said, it doesn't look too bad.

Gary

[jrhoffman75]

Did problem start mid-cycle through an ink cartridge installation? 

Since you ran heading cycle and nozzle check looks good I wouldn't expect a physical cleaning of head would resolve anything, but it is easy enough to do.

I've never run into this. You could try reinstalling printer driver just in case something got corrupted. 

[Gumdrops85]

It is a strange one isn't it. Come to think of it, it actually started playing up after I moved the printer from upstairs to the downstairs office. I wouldn't have knocked it or anything as I'm very careful when moving it, but when I set it up again, my laptop couldn't detect the printer, so I had to reinstall the drivers to get over the issue. It was about this time that the colours started printing incorrectly. Do you think it dould be something to do with the software?

[jrhoffman75]

That seems to be the one change in your setup. I would try deleting the drive, downloading the latest version from Canon site and reinstall new driver. Can't hurt. 

Before you do that try a head alignment from the Maintenance tab of the driver.