Canon-Cleaning the Print Head
Ever wonder why your prints sometimes appear faded or streaky? It’s usually because the printhead inside your printer is clogged or dried out. Like with most printers, Canon printheads can clog due to ink or dust drying up and collecting in the nozzle. A simple printhead cleaning can often get your printer running again (without having to replace your cartridges!) and in this quick guide, we show you how to do it.
Solution1:Automatically clean a Canon printhead
The simplest way to clean a printhead is with Canon’s built-in cleaning function. Both printers that use integrated ink cartridges and printers with individual ink cartridges include this function on their printer display screen. This is your first line of defense when you encounter streaky prints and it usually clears up the print quality problem right away. Check your printer user guide for the proper instructions for your machine.
1 Make sure the printer is on and then touch the setup (gear icon) on the printer display home screen.
2 Then select the maintenance (tools) icon.
3 Select “Cleaning” and then select “Yes”.
4 The printer will go through the cleaning process for about a minute. After it is done you can print a nozzle check test page to see if the cleaning improved the print quality.
To print a nozzle check page, touch the setup gear again and “maintenance” again. Then select “print nozzle check pattern” and touch “Yes”. This will print the nozzle check page. If the colors look complete, the printhead is thoroughly cleaned and you can continue printing. If there are missing lines are streaks, you may want to run a second cleaning or run a deep cleaning on the printer.
To run the deep cleaning, follow the exact same steps as the regular cleaning above, except instead of selecting “Cleaning”, select “Deep Cleaning”. This process consumes more ink so you don’t want to run this function too frequently. If your cartridges still aren’t printing properly after running a cleaning, you can try replacing the cartridges to see if that clears up your print quality issue, or you can follow the steps below to try and manually clean the Canon printhead.
Solution2:Manually clean a Canon printhead
Sometimes the built-in cleaning function isn’t enough. With most Canon printers, you can take the cleaning process a step further by manually cleaning the printhead.
If your printer uses cartridges with an integrated printhead, you can try the “paper towel method” to fix your print quality issue.
Required supplies: A warm, damp paper towel and a dry paper towel
1 Take a warm damp paper towel or coffee filter and blot the cartridge with the printhead facing down onto the paper towel. This will remove any dried ink on the printhead.
2 Then, hold the cartridge with the printhead facing down against a dry paper towel for 2-3 minutes. A dry paper towel will wick the ink out. Do not wipe the print head as this may cause damage.
3 Reinstall the cartridge and try printing again. If you are still getting poor print results at this point, you may need to replace your printer cartridge.
Solution3:Manually cleaning printers with a removable printhead
1 Wait for the cartridges to center and then remove them from the cartridge carriage.
2 Lift up on the latch that is cradling the cartridges to release the printhead from the printer.
3 Pull the printhead up and out to remove it from the machine.
4 Dampen the lint-free cloth with hot water and gently wipe away an excess ink on the printhead nozzle.
5 Place the printhead in the container with the submerged paper towels. The nozzle should be facing down. Be careful not to touch the nozzle as it can be damaged easily.
6 Let the printhead soak for about ten minutes. Then remove it from the container and set it on a dry paper towel to dry for fifteen minutes. The nozzle should be facing up.
7 Reinstall the printhead back into the printer. Don’t forget to secure the latch! Then reinstall the cartridges and run the cleaning function on the machine again.
Solution 4:Cleaning the PrintHead
You need to prepare: a sheet of A4 or Letter-sized plain paper
Make sure that the power is turned on.
Make sure that one or more sheets of A4 or Letter-sized plain paper are loaded in the
Rear Tray.
Open the Paper Output Tray gently.
Clean the Print Head.
1 Press the Setup button. The Setup menu screen will appear.
2 Select Maintenance and press the OK button. The Maintenance screen will appear.
3 Select Cleaning, and press the OK button.
The confirmation screen will appear.
4 Select Yes, and press the OK button.
The machine starts cleaning the Print Head.
Do not perform any other operations until the machine completes the cleaning of the Print Head. This takes about 1 to 2 minutes. The pattern print confirmation screen will appear.
(5) Select Yes, and press the OK button. The nozzle check pattern will be printed.
Solution 5:Cleaning the Print Head Deeply
If print quality does not improve by the standard cleaning of the Print Head, clean the Print Head deeply. Cleaning the Print Head deeply consumes more ink than the standard cleaning of the Print Head, so clean the Print Head deeply only when necessary.
You need to prepare: a sheet of A4 or Letter-sized plain paper
Make sure that the power is turned on.
Make sure that one or more sheets of A4 or Letter-sized plain paper are loaded in the Cassette.
Open the Paper Output Tray gently, and open the Output Tray Extension. Clean the Print Head deeply.
1 Press the Setup button. The Setup menu screen will appear.
2 Select Maintenance and press the OK button.
The Maintenance screen will appear.
3 Select Deep cleaning, and press the OK button.
The confirmation screen will appear.
4 Select Yes, and press the OK button.
The machine starts cleaning the Print Head deeply.
Do not perform any other operations until the machine completes the deep cleaning of the Print Head. This takes about 2 minutes.
The pattern print confirmation screen will appear.
5 Select Yes, and press the OK button.
The nozzle check pattern will be printed.
6 When the completion message appears, press the OK button. The screen will return to the Maintenance screen.