Black verticle line,left side

SOURCE: Printing problem

Hello,

I solved the problem on the MP530 printer of a friend of mine.

BUT: If you are not a DIY, I would strongly recommend not opening this machine.
It took me more than a couple of hours to disassemble, clean and reassemble again.
If you follow the disassembly instructions below, you might be able to do this faster than I did, because I had to figure out how to open the case without breaking anything.

Also, in the end, you will need some less ordinary tools like a very tiny crosshead screwdriver and a slim stick with a hook at the end to get the springs back on their places again. I used a steel instrument with a hook my dentist gave me but I guess one can fix a tool with a bent paperclip.

SECOND BUT: I cleaned up the consequences of this problem so the printer works fine again without that black streak on the back side of the paper. This does not mean that I found and fixed the problem.

Because I have not been able to find out where all this ink comes from in the first place. It is obvious that this ink is NOT produced when the printer prints because in that case it would have been on the front side of the paper and not the back side.
In this printer, once I had disassembled all and was left with the bare printer basement and the unit which does the sheet transport out to the front, I discovered a real mountain of nearly dry ink. The bottom of this mountain was sitting on the basement of the printer which is covered with a special kind of absorbing material which is supposed to deal with waste ink. And the mountain was high enough to rise through the sheet transport unit. Which explains the black streak.

As someone else said, the top of the mountain is underneath the big black cartridge.
So, one might say that this cartridge is/was leaking. But I have not changed the cartridge and the printer does not leak anymore.
To check this, once up and running again, I have been sliding a small piece of paper underneath the inner cover (the one you have to open if you want to change a cartridge).
By inserting this piece of paper while you pull down the cover (which enlarges the inner height of the sheet transport unit) you will be able to push the paper way in, underneath the area where the leak should be.

Whether the printer is off or on, in economy mode or cleaning heads, no single drop of ink came out.
It might of course be that my friend had not completely inserted the cartridge as it should, but in that case the printer should have warned, don’t you think?

I also found that exactly on the spot where the mountain was sitting, there is a small plastic tube which goes right, to the area where the heads are cleaned. I know that this tube is to transport waste ink, but I don’t know in which direction. If it is supposed to suck ink out of this place and spit it out in a lower level absorbing reservoir then fine, but what if it operates in the opposite direction? Then it would be able to spit ink underneath the paper even while you are printing… I am sure that real printer technicians have the answer to this question, so if someone wants to help us out with this one…

Do you still want to clean your printer? (Because that is all I did in the end).
Here you go then:

Next steps in the next post, since apparently text length is very limited here.

SOURCE: black ink cartridge is leaking and black line is running down back of page

YOU CAN TRY PULLING THE CARTRIDGE OUT AND WITH A CLEAN , VERY SOFT CLOTH , CLEAN THE HEAD GENTLY ....SOME CARTRIDGES ARE JUST FAULTY ....HAVE YOU TRIED RETURNING IT OR GOING TO CANON SITE AND TROUBLESHOOTING ?