I have a Canon i865 printer which has been v.good over the
past two years.
However recently it has started to develop a banding problem
in that dark horizontal lines, about 5mm apart, appear whenever
I try to print any sizeable block of any colour.
The darker the colour the more pronounced the banding.
No problem with text of any colour.
Any ideas suggestions greatly appreciated.
TIA
Brian
Have you tried performing a nozzle check print from the maintenance
menu of the driver? It will show if any jets in the printhead are
clogged or otherwise non-operational. Sometimes the electrical
contacts have oxidized somewhat, and impede conductivity. Try
cleaning them with a pencil eraser, making sure to keep the eraser
residue from contaminating any other part of the printhead.
Sometimes a regular head cleaning, or a deep head cleaning from the
same menu will get them working again.
As a last resort, remove the ink cartridges, and then remove the
printhead. Give the printhead a good, long, submersive bath in a tub
of isopropyl alcohol (overnite should be good), taking care not to
touch the printhead nozzles on the bottom, ever!. Repeat until no ink
remains in the head. Clean gently with compressed air, then let dry
overnite. Taking a magnifying glass, visually examine the printhead
(the nozzles on the bottom), looking for any irregularities which may
indicate damage. If you see any, you'll have to get yourself a new
printhead. If you don't see any damage, reinstall it in the printer,
reinstall the ink cartridges, and test it out again.
If you think you need a new printhead, look on eBay and search for
QY6-0049. That's the part no. you'll need. About US$40, and worth it
if the rest of the printer is still in good working order. The i860/
i865 has still-decent resolution, and 3rd party inks are very cheap
for this model (see BCI-3eBK and BCI-6 at
www.idiya-solutions.com).
Printheads do wear out after many thousands of prints, or sometimes
they get damaged. Fortunately, those in most Canon printers are
replaceable.
FYI, one of my IP5000's has printed over 8500 pages over the past 3
years, mostly colour, all with the original printhead using CoralJet
3rd party ink cartridges, and it is still going strong.
Phineas