I got a deal (I thought) on a Canon PIXMA Pro 10. I am new to photographic inkjet technology, so I didn’t understand the issues involved in resurrecting an under-used printer. I see now that I probably overpaid, but it’s a fun project and maybe I can sell it on when I get it working. This post will detail the steps to getting it working, assuming I get it working!
Physical inspection showed that the printer was in one piece. The printhead, cartridges, and cables were all present when I picked it up. I plugged in the printer.
Steps I’ve tried so far
- Plug in printer and see that it makes noises that sound okay. It will make a lot of weird noises, but not grinding or crunching or other “bad” noises.
- Install drivers from the Canon support page appropriate for your operating system. I’m using MacOS 14.
- (optional) Install ICC profiles. See the pitfalls below.
- Readout the ink levels from within the driver “Print Utilities” dialog. Replace whatever cartridges are empty and do a test print. The printer will not print a test print if any of the cartridges are listed as empty.
- Print a test page from within the driver “Printer Utilities” dialog. This is the same test print that prints when you try a head cleaning. In my case, I initially got a dull black print only with no color bars. If yours works flawlessly, congratulations: you’re done. Mine did not.
- Replace all the ink cartridges. I recommend doing this only after replacing the empty cartridges because you will want to verify that the printer works at all before buying a complete set of cartridges. You probably eventually want a full fresh set of cartridges when that’s verified to make sure that the cartridges are not a problem.
- If your printer test page is missing bars and you have fresh cartridges, then it’s a dirty/clogged printhead.
- Clean the printhead. See details in the next section.
- Test print. If all good, then move on to next step, otherwise continue cleaning the printhead.
- Print head alignment. Follow the on-screen instructions. I’m not sure this is necessary, but I did it anyway. Let me know if you think this is necessary!
Printhead Cleaning Details
- Built-in cleaning. First thing to try is to just use the cleaning function in the printer utility. This did nothing for me initially. Don’t repeat this too many times (more than twice). It just wastes ink and time.
- Built-in deep cleaning. I tried this once, it did nothing really. I wouldn’t try this more than once.
- WARNING: Now for the “dangerous” off-label stuff. I don’t make any guarantees about this. You’ll probably damage your $400 printhead. This is probably all fiction, so don’t come to me mad that you broke your expensive printer. For me it was worth the risk because otherwise I had a boat anchor.
- The printhead can be removed by removing all of the ink cartridges, lifting the grey lever clamping the printhead in place, then carefully removing the internal black plastic printhead. It comes up-and-forward as it comes out.
- Soaking in water. I put plain tap water in a plastic takeout container big enough to fit the printhead. I used about 1/4 inch deep, just enough to cover the bottom part with the holes.
- Be careful not to get the circuit board on the back of the printhead wet. If you do get it wet, clean it using IPA or deionized water before drying completely. I’ve seen videos of people cleaning these things in the sink under running water, but I’m not that brave.
- Spoon small amounts of water into the individual ink reservoirs. For me, I saw the ink eventually start to dissolve. I emptied the reservoirs and refilled with a spoon several times over an afternoon.
- I left the whole thing to soak in water overnight. Everything but the black ink was clear in the morning when I reinstalled and ran a test print.
- Paper towel trick. I placed a folded up paper towel in the bottom of the tray and saturated it with water. Gently press the printhead against the paper towel. This forces liquid from the paper towel into the printhead. When they are clear, the liquid will barely flow out of the mesh screens at the individual ink reservoirs. See the video below.
- Soaking in glass cleaner. I repeated the above process with the plainest, cheapest glass cleaner that I could find at the grocery store. My glass cleaner appears to contain water, alcohol, surfactants, and some citric acid. Sounds reasonable to me. If I were less impatient, I would have just tried mixing my own from vodka. To be safe, I rinsed the printhead in water, both the bottom and the individual reservoirs.
Pitfalls
- For initial testing I tried using the manual feed tray. Instead use the rear tray in normal configuration. Normal office paper doesn’t work with the manual feed tray and making sure the manual tray is specified in the printer driver is not worth the hassle.
- Canon printer manual is only available as a weird app. As a result I’m not using it. YMMV.