Why does my printer print "dot matrix" like words all of a sudden?!?

[Spudd]

I can't find help on this one anywhere. Last night, as I was printing a term paper, I ran out of ink, so I installed a brand new Canon BC 20 Black ink cartridge for my BJC- 4200 printer as I've done many times over the years. It continued to print with the new cartridge just fine. However, when I came back later and printed out another paper, on the fifth page, the words started printing like they were missing lines in them. The printout looks like it's "Dot matrix" all of a sudden...as if the nozzle is skipping a line between a letters character as it prints so the words on the page look like they were printed with dots instead of solid lines. I tried running the "Clean Head" command almost 15 times, but it hasn't fixed the problem. I even went out and bought another new cartridge, and it still doesn't work! What do I do? This just happened in the middle of printing, so I don't see how it could be a driver problem. I even got the new drivers from canon's website, and everything. How do I fix this thing? I've got a paper due again on Monday! HeLP!!!

 

[Bozz]

I am not familiar with that printer, but am familiar with the problem.

Unplug the printer when the carridge is in the middle so you can manually move it around.

You will need Isopropyl Alcohol (get it from a drug store)

If the ink cartridge has the print head built into it (like HP printers) then remove it from the printer and clean the clogged up ink from the gold colored part on the bottom of the cartridge. If the print head is built into the printer it will be a bit more tricky, but using cotton buds you can clean the clogged ink from the bottom of the carridge assy.

The next part is also important. Using cotton buds clean the foam and rubber cleaning blocks on the RHS of the printer, these are supposed to clean the print head during initialisation (when you turn the printer on) but eventually get clogged up.

Cheers

 

[Spudd]

Thank you very kindly for the response my fellow ATer. I greatly appreciate it. Hopefully it will work, if not I might have to just buy a whole new cartridge. Do you know of any reputable online places to get cartridges cheap? I'll do a search on here and see if anything turns up. Thank you.

 

[Bozz]

No I dont know any online places to get cartridges, I am in Australia and work in IT so when I need something I just walk out back and get it