How to clean the printhead on your Canon printer

Learn how to clean the printhead on your Canon printers and how to test them out by following this tutorials.

Cleaning the printhead of your Canon printer is necessary to improve the quality of prints. After using your printer for awhile without doing the maintenance require, your print quality may decrease, sheets will come out blurry or cover in stripes cutting the words, especially if you are using a Canon printer that works with 210 and 211 ink cartridges.

Sometimes, we think the ink cartridge is damage if the prints comes out with a straight lines in the pages. However, it is not always the case. If your ink cartridges have started printing lines on top of your documents, it could mean the cartridges are running low on ink. If you wish to learn how to refill the canon 210 and 211 ink cartridges, please click on these links.

Another possible cause for this problem is that the ink cartridges have actually burned out and damaged the contacts. If this is your case, please read the following post to learn how to take care of these contacts. Note that there no solution to repair your cartridge when the contact become obsolete, therefore, you need to take a good care of them.

Cleaning the printheads on your printer will help the cartridges clean their own injectors. It will also help remove all the ink residues in the cartridge and contribute to overall ink flow. Please avoid cleaning them too often, or the ink that flows from the cartridge will get stuck in the ink pads.
If this happens, your printer will display another error message indicating the ink pads are now full. If you already have this problem, please visit the following post.

Printhead cleaning procedure for Canon printers:

Step #1:
First, access printer's setting. Every single time you install a printer on a computer you will also install a program that will allow you to customize it. In the settings, you will be able to select the page type, the color on your prints and the printheads cleaning process.

You must know what version of your operating system is running on your computer to use this program. If you don’t know yours, take a look at the following post. Now that you’ve identified your OS, please continue with the next steps:

1. For Windowxsp, click on start menu - control panel - printers and other hardware - printers and faxes.

2. In the case of windows7, you should click on start menu - printing devices. This option usually looks like a printer on this menu.

You must now select the printer you want to do this procedure. Then, open the file menu and select printing preferences; it’s usually the third option from the top.

printer properties

Step #2:

Browse the entire printing preferences menu and look for the maintenance widget, located on the upper-right side of the window, or on the first stop from right to left. A new window will appear, where you will be able to configure the  printer’s drivers.

maintenance 

Now, click on the image we just showed you, and then on the confirmation message will appear. Your printer should start an automatic printhead cleaning process. It can take a while, but we recommend  stoping using the printer until this process is completd.

icon for cleaning

Step #3:

After the cleaning process is done, print a test pattern sheet just to make sure everything’s working well. You can find this option on the same maintenance menu we mentioned before..

In order to print a test pattern sheet, you must follow the following proccedure:

1. In windowsxp, click on start menu - control panel - printers and other hardware - printers and faxes, just like you did the last time.

2. In windows7, first click on the start menu and then on printing devices.

3. Select the printer you want to test and open the printer properties menu. 

4. Now click on maintenance. It usually shows up on the first widget from right to left.

5. Then, click on injector test. You should see a message just like the one shown in the following picture.

6. Your printer will now produce a test sheet.

nozzle check

Step #4:

If you didn’t get good results from the first printhead cleaning, you must have to do a deeper cleanse on them, which can also be selected on the printer’s maintenance menu. Here’s a picture of it.

 cleaning icon

We recommend repeating the regular cleaning procedure several times before applying this one, since the deep cleans will use a lot of ink.If the problem persists after deep-cleaning the printheads, you must understand your ink cartridge’s lifespan has come to an end.

Now that you’ve cleaned the printhead, please print a pattern or test sheet. You can select this option on the maintenance widget of your printer’s settings menu. Your test sheets should look like this.

results after cleaning

On the previous picture, #1 indicates the black ink cartridge test, while #2 marks the tricolor ink cartridge functioning test. If you’re already having problems with your black cartridge’s printing quality, then your test sheet should look like the next image.

printing defects

If some lines aren’t printed, your black ink cartridge could be in trouble. If, on the contrary, you can see all the lines and they look well, then your ink cartridge is still in good shape. 

Testing your tricolor ink cartridge will produce a different result. If your pattern test looks like the following picture after cleaning the print heads on your canon printer, then you may have some problems with this cartridge in particular.

horizontal lines on prints

If these lines show up on your colored test sheets, you will need to replace the tricolor ink cartridge for a new one. Some of the contacts on it may have burned out, or the printhead could be completely clogged. If you need more help with this tutorial, please contact us by posting a comment in the section below this post.