I am doing a wedding cake for tomorrow and of course my edible image printer has to act up. This is the first time I have had this much trouble. My question is has anyone ever cleaned their print head without having a print head cleaning kit. I use the canon ip3500 prixma printer with kopykake inks and frosting sheets. The only color being affected seems to be the black. HELP PLEASE ANYONE! I am desperate!

Anyone had this problem? Anyone?

Hi waterlily,
Sorry to hear you are having trouble with your machine, but on a good note you can clean the print head without the "cleaning unit". Take the print head out of your printer and run it under hot tap water, as hot as you can take it without burning yourself. Flip the print head back and forth letting the pressure of the water go through the print head until you see no more visible ink coming out.

Once you have done that take a paper towel and dry off your print head thoroughly. Make sure that you have it completely dry as all it takes is one drop of water on the back circuit board of the print head will render the print head useless.

That should hopefully resolve your clogging issues. Another thing you can check is take your black cartridge and tap it on a piece of paper, if you get a decent circle of ink out of the cartridge then it probably is your print head. If you get little to no ink from the cartridge then it is probably a vacuum lock. To fix this take the cartridge and put it back in the cap that it originally came in, lift back the label and you will find a plug. Take the plug out for about 5-10 seconds then reinsert the plug back in. Put the label back down and if it does not stick then put a small piece of tape to hold it in place, be careful when you remove the cartridge from its cap as it may drip ink at first. Put your cartridge back in the machine and run a test print on regular paper. These steps should hopefully resolve any issue you might have. Best of Luck

\\\\PhotoFrost

Thank you for the help. I will try and let you know the outcome. I appreciate your help in my time of much need!!!

PhotoFrost, I want to thank you so very much. I think I got it to work, finally! Thank you,thank you, thank you!

Photo Frost how great that you were reading this and was able to help out. That's what makes it so great to be able to get help on CC.

Glad I could help. Since I work in the industry of Edible Photos and Images, I try and check in daily to see if their are any questions about it. Would love to see what you printed

waterlily
I have the same printer, and have also had probs. I have already replaced the printhead. I just use it as a hobby baker so I thought maybe that was ome of the reasons. anyway last week I ordered the cleaning cartridges but have not used them yet! Its like every time I want to print a image I have to prime the crazy thing! Photofrost thanks for the info --I printed that out!

Another helpful tip:

If you are not going to be doing a Edible print for more than 3-5 days then remove your ink cartridges and put them in their original caps and store them in a ziploc bag. Remove the print head and rinse thoroughly as I described above, then dry it off and place it in a ziploc bag as well. You will find a little condensation on the inside of the ziploc bag in an hour or so but this is fine, just leave it alone until the next time you print. By sealing them you are keeping the moisture in the print head. When you are ready to print again take out your print head dry any moisture that may be on it and install everything as normal. Voila!! your printing like the first day you bought your printer.

If anyone is ever in need of helpful advice about Edible Photos and Images and I do not see a post feel free to pm me and I will be glad to assist.

Thanks soo much for that tip also! I cannot tell you hoew many sheets I have ruined! I will do the storage thing from now on!