Printer Woes

Discussion in 'Computer Corner' started by Palustris, Nov 30, 2017.

  1. Palustris

    Palustris Total Gardener

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    For some reason my Canon printer will not print text. It just puts the paper through with nothing on it. Yet is printed a black and white image, no trouble. Ink is plentiful and since the machine responds to the Print being sent I assume the connection is correct.
    Any ideas?
     
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    • pete

      pete Growing a bit of this and a bit of that....

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      Cant help I'm afraid but I do sympathise, printers are diabolical rubbish that seem to have a mind of their own IMO.
      Never found one that works when asked, or prints what it is asked to without a lot of thinking about it and drama.
      Mostly ending up with loads of wasted paper.
       
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      • Fat Controller

        Fat Controller 'Cuddly' Scottish Admin! Staff Member

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        Most likely a blocked print head - they can be cleaned quite easily, but you have to be very methodical as to how you do it. I can guide you through it though
         
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        • misterQ

          misterQ Super Gardener

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          What program did you print from, OP?

          Some programs such as web browsers (eg Firefox) have broken print rendering engines that don't output text correctly.

          Try printing from other programs such as a text editor, word processor or from the printer test page feature to verify if this is the case.
           
        • Jack McHammocklashing

          Jack McHammocklashing Sludgemariner

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          depends on what cannon printer, They have two black inks, one for text and one for photos on some printers as in Pixma 5350, or as stated earlier if not used a lot then the print head is gummed up
           
        • Palustris

          Palustris Total Gardener

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          Would not print text from any Text program, but it did print a black and white picture from Microsoft Word. New black ink cartridge. Ran the Cleaning process and the test print came out ok.
          It did try to print the Canon manual, no problem.
          Saved the document as a Pd file and managed to print that. Odd.
          Thanks folks.
           
        • ricky101

          ricky101 Total Gardener

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          Hi FC,

          I have a HP Deskjet 1510, only bought for its scanner to hdd function, but the black cartridge has stopped, (colour ok) , blocked I assume, only done about 20 simple small test prints , so doubt its empty.

          Did try the cleaning procedure at the time but no effect, been stored since, about 12 months.

          ( use a laser printer for all my normal printing, so much cheaper to run for normal b/w printouts and never had to do anything to it other than replace the ink cartridge once in a year or two)

          If you do have a proven method of unblocking them would appreciate any guidance, when you have a minute free.
           
        • Scrungee

          Scrungee Well known for it

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          Just had a problem with an HP 4 cartridge printer not printing Cyan.



          I bought it from Tesco many years ago using 'doubled up"' Clubcard Points, deliberately choosing one that used as many ink carts as possible because Tesco paid £1 in CC Points for every one recycled through their scheme.

          As they had promotions such as 'buy 2 get 1 free', buy 2 get £5's worth of CC Points, and 'get £10 off a £75 spend' and 'double up' promotions all running concurrently at Tesco Direct, I (and others) cleared them out.

          Using all those combined promotions meant, at a price of something like £7.50 per cartridge, 15 ink carts were, after buy 2 get 1 free, £75 less £10 = £65 = £32.50 in doubled up CC vouchers.

          I then got 7 x £5 = £35 in bonus points, another £15 in recycling points, plus about £1 in standard CC points for spend using a Tesco Bank credit card, total points on each purchase of 15 ink carts = £51 in vouchers for a spend of £32.50 in vouchers [1]

          I then used those resulting points/points at 4 x face value (£204 per £32.50 in points spent) to buy 2 canal boat holidays, and a couple of laptops and a greenhouse at 2 x face value, plus I also effectively got free ink [2]

          [1] I got most of the points used free from buying cheap mobile phones at Tesco, which also included free top up, the phone and free top up (redeemed using a points when you top up vouchet) could be of a conditional spend voucher shop, then the mobile recycled with Tesco to get more points than it cost originally, without all the freebies, etc., making a big profit on every one purchased.

          [2] I've used my printer and 'free' ink to print masses of promotional vouchers, enabling me in just the last 12 months to get well over £1,000's worth of free products plus money off my shopping (where coupon value exceeds price paid).


          So, as our daughter has an identical working printer that'll use our remaining ink carts, I didn't hesitate in buying 2 new identical 50% off cheap printers from Argos, getting a £5 off over £50 spend voucher and not spending any time trying to revive it.

          We'll once again co-ordinate on printers/ink carts, and run her old printer and remaining ink carts into the ground printing (hopefully) a further £1'000's worth of money saving vouchers.
           
          Last edited: Dec 1, 2017
        • Fat Controller

          Fat Controller 'Cuddly' Scottish Admin! Staff Member

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          The Canon print heads are notorious for problems, but are replaceable for £9-£30 depending on model, and whether you are fussy for original equipment. Pure black text will try and print to the black-black cartridge (XL), whereas greyscale (images, PDF etc) will be printed using a mixture of black and coloured cartridges; the printheads on these are easy to clean, if a little time consuimg and you have to be a bit careful. Happy to guide you.

          HP printers differ from others in one significant way - the printheads on these are part of the cartridges, so every time you replace the cartridge, you are replacing the printhead also. Costs are generally higher, however print quality benefits as does reliability - the only way that I can think of cleaning the printhead on one of these is to submerge the printhead (bottom of the cartridge) in a few millimetres of isopropyl alcohol (70%, roughly), overnight (agitating a few times, and changing the alcohol if needed until it is clear) and then let it dry thoroughly before using. If the cartridges you have are genuine HP, they are very good at replacing faulty ones - again, another benefit of the higher price.
           
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