[Synotic]

OK, I am trying to print some full-sized borderless prints on my Canon i550, which I've always been able to do, but just recently, every single sheet has black smears at the bottom of the page.



This is a picture of the culprit sheet on top of the back of another sheet.



A close-up of the smear.

I have deep cleaned the print heads, put in brand new ink, tried different paper, and they still appear

In trying to troubleshoot it, I found something perhaps useful: I opened the print cover and taped down the little switch that tells the printer that it's closed. I then printed out a test sheet. When it is maybe half an inch away from the bottom, it prints on the black streaks, while it still continues to finish the page. So the final product looks simply like the actual page, except with black ink smeared at the bottom. Does this mean that there was perhaps a rupture at some point and that there is blank ink on the bottom of the moving attachment that is simply spreading ink on the paper? The only thing that makes me think otherwise is that whenever I print out a normal sheet (as in not borderless, not the entire page filled with content) of paper, the smears don't appear.

I'm not trying to make these look professional or anything, but I'm not willing to have black smears at the bottom of all of my pages. Is anyone familiar with this or knows how I might be able to fix this? I need to get these printed in the next few days, so any quick help is appreciated. Thanks

[wuzup101]

I have experienced similar things (though not as broad as yours) on my i950. They are usually the result of small debris getting in contact with the print head (often I get down feathers from my bead or hairs). You might try getting a can of compressed air and blowing the printer out. You can also try cleaning the heads with some alcohol.

[tooki]

Which side of the paper are the smears on? I am assuming the print side.

Generally, such smears are the result of a dust bunny on the printhead. During printing, the paper is normally held by two rollers, one before the printhead, one after. On a non-borderless printout, all the printing is done with the page held by both rollers. In a borderless print, the last 1/2 or so has to be done with the paper only held by one roller (the one closer to the exit), since the other end has to be free to print. The weight of the paper causes the free end inside the printer to raise up a bit, and that's when it's hitting the dust bunny. A head cleaning may be enough, but you might need to take out the printhead and use a post-it note's sticky strip to pull off the dust bunny, if you can't just grab it (be VERY careful not to apply pressure to the print head, it can be damaged).

tooki

[Synotic]

The print head itself seems fine, as in the metallic exit the ink comes out of, although I could be wrong.

tooki, I think you're describing the problem exactly. It's not exactly a roller, but a metal clasp holds down the edge of the paper as it nears the end, at which point it lifts up and the paper does indeed raise up. It makes sense because the marks are made as it scrapes against the bottom of the head; they aren't actually printed on. I removed the head and cleaned up a lot of gunk and ink off the top of it, and it seems to have helped, but the problem still occurs. After I printed the test sheet, the head looks like this again:



Those black streaks were newly created. Am I just going to have to get a new print head? Thanks again.