Modded Canon printer problem

[GizmoTheGremlin]

I felt unusually inspired today by The village idiot and decided to modify my Canon i550 printer into a CD/DVD Printer. The entire process was surprizingly easy, and upon completing the modification but before reassembling the unit, I test printed both CD and photographic printing. Both worked great.

So i put the cover back on and test printed another photograph, but this time something was wrong. the blue wasn't right. Printing an image in draft mode produced aweful lines throughout the image.

I took the printer apart again, and toyed with it for hours. but to no avail.

here is a picture of the nozzle test pattern I printed after the mod:



Sorry, I gave away my scanner a couple of months ago because i never use it. I had to take this pic with a camera.

Looks like the print head is bad, so I got on the phone to order another one. I was put on hold and decided to hang up. It just didn't make sense that the print head would go completely bad within minutes of it being fine.

I wanted to see what you guys thought. I just want to be sure before I shell out another 50 bucks for something that won't work.

I know The village idiot has modded plenty of printers, but i didn't know if anyone here tried a Canon or had seen this pattern before.

Thanks,
Gizmo

[Conquest10]

Probably SOL.

[GizmoTheGremlin]

agreed. but am I SOL 50 bucks for the print head or 90 bucks for a new printer?

I'm leaning toward just dishing out the 50 bucks for the new print head and seeing what happens.

[DVD_Ripper]

Hmmm... I wonder if some of the HP's PhotoPrinters can be modded? Do you hve a link to that thread?

[GizmoTheGremlin]

Here are the two guides in the guides section.

Lexmark conversion

Epson conversion

They didn't help much with my canon, but they gave me inspiration to go ahead and tear it apart to see if it's possible. It was pretty easy, although I obviously screwed something up. i think that I didn't raise my print head enough, and it may have gotten damaged when I printed on the last DVD.

I ordered another print head today, and I plan to raise the unit more before testing. unfortunately, these print heads have to be special ordered and no returns, so if it isn't the problem, then I will probably give up on this venture.

[DVD_Ripper]

Thanks

[offline]

Yes the village idiot's ideas were excellent as was his
guides. Blast those bastards who re-sold the idea on e-bay!
Thankfully with the Epson R series being so cheap they
did not have the time to make too much money.

In many ways Ebay has a lot to answer for

[GizmoTheGremlin]

Well, I have a happy ending.

The new print head came today, and all works perfectly.

I didn't really think that cd printing would be that much better than printing on labels, but I was wrong. The print is virtually perfect.

The great thing is, the inks on the canon are easily refillable. You can actually see through the clear plastic ink cartidges and know exactly how much ink is left. I pop a hole in the top of each cartridge and fill it up as it needs it. I have never removed the cartridges from the caddy until now to change the print head and the printer is two years old.

The entire mod would have been completely free had I not been a ditz and screwed up my own printer head. ah well, 50 bucks is well worth it for a cd/photograph printer.

My future plans: build a cd tray (or buy one) to ensure a perfect line up everytime. build some kind of switching mechanism on top so that I can switch easily back and forth between photographic printing and cd printing. Right now it takes me about 20 secs to adjust the printer to photgraphic printing from CD printing and about 1 min 15 secs to switch from photographic to CD printing. Not too shabby, but I got to make something better.

All thanks go to The village idiot for his great guides and superimage for showing me that the i550 could indeed be modded.

[GizmoTheGremlin]

Yes the village idiot's ideas were excellent as was his
guides. Blast those bastards who re-sold the idea on e-bay!

I got a couple of the links for a seller on ebay. One of the ones that he sells is definately The village idiots guide. exactly the same except the pics are not watermarked. it's an exe file that you download from his website.

there is also a canon mod guide that the ebay guy had. not sure where that one was from, but you can bet that guy didn't write it. not really like what i did though. I can give anybody the link if they want it.

I took pictures of my own mod during the process. I should sit down and write a guide. I'm sure the canon i550, i850, and probably the i950 are all modded the same. Maybe when I get time....