Pro-10 Group 2 Printheads non-functional

[EricRFMA]

I bought a new Pixma Pro-10 printer in March (about 8 months ago). It hasnt been used much, but it had been working fine.

I went to print something yesterday, and all the colors were way off. So I did a nozzle check. The group 1 nozzles were fine, but the group 2 nozzles column was completely blank. I did the prescribed clean-clean-deep clean-wait 24hrs-deep clean dance, but the group 2 nozzles were still dead.

I'll call Canon on Monday, and I'm going to go back to the store (which carries a lot of Canon stuff) and see if they know anything.

In the meantime, I was wondering if anyone here has experienced this. I hope I don't have to send it back, and end up having them send me a refurbished one.

Thanks!

[jrhoffman75]

The head is removeable/replaceable if it comes to that.. No need to send printer back if a clogged head is the problem.

If you have a Canon pigment printer you should print a nozzle check every two days. uses little ink and avoids triggering a cleaning cycle.

[EricRFMA · Accepted solution]

Thanks jrhoffman75... nice to hear from a fellow New Englander.

I should have remembered that the heads on the Pro-10 were removable, since I think I installed them in the first place!

So I went to the store where I bought the printer, and the fellow there had a friend who had the same issue. The friend called Canon support who told him to remove all the ink cartridges, then the heads. Then replace everything.

When I did that, I at least got some things showing up in the group 2 column. After many many many many cleaning cycles, and having to replace all the group 2 ink cartridges (grumble), everything was just fine.

Of course, after all that, I found this; https://support.usa.canon.com/kb/index?page=content&id=ART164767&actp=search&viewlocale=en_US&search... which says to do the same thing. Oh well.

Hopefully this may help someone else who runs into this problem.

[HenrikE]

With "Then replace everything" do you mean put in a compleatly new print head, or just putting it in and out again?

Hope to get some answers, thanks.

[HenrikE]

I have tried taking it out and putting it in again but my black is still missing. Done multiple clean but still BK is not working. 😞

To clarify, I am printing out test prints and BK is missing and it is on a Pro-100.

Any suggestions? No more warranty unfortunately.

[EricRFMA]

Hi HenrikE...

All I did was remove the ink cartridges, then the print heads, and just put them all back in. Nothing was replaced, the originals were put back in.

When I first had my problem, the entire group 2 column of the test print was completely blank. Not a pixel to be seen. After I removed/reinstalled everything, I saw some dots, but not many. But that was enough that repeated cleanings eventually cleared things up.

If _just_ your BK is missing, but all the other inks display properly on the test print, it might be your BK cartridge. The only thing I can think of is to remove and reinstall the BK cartridge. I think I may have done the remove/replace (all the cartridges and the print heads) thing a couple of times, trying to move things along.

Do things improve at all with successive cleanings? Did you try a deep cleaning? I think after I removed/replaced everything I just did normal cleanings, and each time a little bit more appeared on the test page. But I think I did have to repeat the remove/replace procedure at some point because the improvement had stopped. They resumed after I did the remove/replace again.

Also, I'm on a Pro-10 not Pro-100, and I don't know what the differences are or if they'd make any difference.

Hope this helps... good luck!

[HenrikE]

Thank You Eric!

I did not do the trick for me, at least with the number of deep clean I felt ok to waste ink on. BUT, dipping the ink heads in a few mm of window cleaner and push some from the top did! Very quick fix!

Let me know if anyone needs more description of the process. 

[LWalke]

Thanks for this post, Eric.  I experienced the exact same problem:  out of the blue, no 'Group 2' cartridges were expelling ink.  I tried the usual:  cleaning, deep-cleaning, cursing, etc.; but, to no avail. 

Then, I read your post and followed the steps in the article.  Easy-peasy - the problem is fixed.  No further smudging, banding, or any of that to deal with - the printer simply started working again.  I did clean a bit of accumulated ink from around the print heads using alcohol pads, most noticeable on Group 2.

Again, thanks for the post and the link to the article.  It really saved my bacon!

Luther