Canon Printer Help

[Darklighter]

Greetings...

I just bought one of these all-in-ones, which is about my 8th or 9th Canon printer over the years. This one has a first for me, two black cartridges, one slim (normal) and the other large (label: PGBK). Out of the box the PGBK cartridge doesn't seem to work... nothing shows in it's space for the nozzle check, and it's part of the print head alignment is missing as well.

I took the unit back to the store, where we tried a different cartridge and print head... no joy. They ordered me a new one. Now, what I am am concerned with is this: Is this a defect, or did I miss a setting, etc.? I scoured the manuals (paper and on-line), but found nothing. The diagrams I found of the nozzle check clearly show the PGBK part at the top of the printout. Does anyone out there have this unit, or a similar one (5 cartridges, including 2 blk) that can confirm this for me? Any help appreciated... I don't know what I'll do if the replacement does the same thing :4-dontkno

Thanks...

 

[13Gigatons]

What is the model number?

Since you tried a different print head/cartridge it sounds like the printer itself was defective.

 

[Lemon law]

I agree, it has to be a defective printer. A new print print head and cartridge in the slot covers the gamut of user repairs. A good chance its in the printer's circuitry itself as it reads the PGBK chip and somehow tells it not to print without triggering an alarm. Or it fails to tell the printhead to energize the thermal firing of the PGBK nozzles.

As for the reason for two blacks in the basic Canon print engine starting with the i860, is that large pigmented ink black cartridge is intended for text printing, and the small photoblack cartridge uses a dye based ink
for photoprinting. If the printer only used the three primary dye based ink colors of cyan, yellow, and magenta in photoprinting, it would have to combine all three to produce a muddy looking black in photoprinting.

 

[Darklighter]

Thanks for the replies...

Sorry, it's a Canon Pixma MP540

I wanted to know if anyone could confirm that teh PGBK was supposed to print on the nozzle check and print head alignment, and/or is there a setting/switch to activate that specific cartridge?

 

[13Gigatons]

Originally posted by: Darklighter
Thanks for the replies...

Sorry, it's a Canon Pixma MP540

I wanted to know if anyone could confirm that teh PGBK was supposed to print on the nozzle check and print head alignment, and/or is there a setting/switch to activate that specific cartridge?

Maybe nozzle check just malfunctioned. You did try printing a page of text ?

 

[mpilchfamily]

It may not need to be aligned. That other black is for printing plain text only. So it doesn't have to be aligned since it won't be used in conjuction with the other colors to create a print. The small black and the color cartriges, as you know, need to be aligned in order to print corectly so that the colors are not offset when layed on the page.

 

[Zepper]

Yes, if you run the whole self-test/alignment protocols, the PG should be tested with the others. You do have to be sure the tanks are snapped down as they have a chip on them that has to make good contact. The chip contacts on the tank and in the head need to be clean - not too hard to drip some ink down onto the contacts in the bottom front of the head.

.bh.

 

[Darklighter]

Turns out the printer was defective, the replacement works great. Thanks for the help, guys!