How to Change the Printhead for Canon IPF710

Canon Image  Prograph 710. Prints a nice fine colorful line, Excellent for design in  computer aided drafting.
It seems the printhead has an exact life predetermined. As if there is an exact number of prints it is allowed  before you have to pay your plotter dues. What I mean is, this head goes out pretty often. about once every two years where I work.
Today I got the  fine duty of removing and replacing this printhead.
So I took pictures along the way and decided I would post a “How to” for those who might want to see the process.
Fairly simple printhead to replace.

Before anything, on eyour Image  Prograph 710 (ipf710) go to the menu, and go to maintenance.
1. Select the option that says “replace printhead”.
The plotter will make a few sounds and put up a warning on the screen saying it is busy.
What plotter  is doing, is evacuating all of the ink in the printhead so you don’t make a mess and or mess up the plotter with an ink spill.
This  took about 3-5 minutes.
2.  When the  plotter has completed dumping the ink out of the printhead, you should hear some beeps and the screen will now tell you to unlock and  lift the large front  cover.
3.  The printhead carriage will now be in the center (or close enough that you can access the printhead) and the screen should be prompting you to open the  carriage cover.  Do that, it lifts from the front to the back. It’s about 3″x5 “.

carriage cover

4. Inside you will there is another locking mechanism, likely the same color. Lift that one also, it should lift from  back to the front. More like a locking arm.

Arm Lock

5.You should then find yet another locking mechanism,  likely the same color, it should lift from front to back.
When you lift this one, you should feel a click, that’s the printhead being released and slightly pushed up and outward. No more than an 8th of an inch though.

Last Lock

6. Now is a good time to put on a glove. There may be some ink.  Ours was quite clean.    Now reach in and grip the printhead tight and pull upward. Should not need much force. Be careful. Many breakable  parts in this area that can cost you plenty of downtime.

PF-03 printhead

This is what it looks like from the side Look at the image closely and look at the image above for orientation.
Put the old printhead in a bag  for  recycling. Or save it.
7. Now unbox and unbag the new print head and take the  safety covers off.

Now just reverse what you  just did, but with  new printhead.

Once everything is back together, the printer will  fill the new printhead with ink and begin testing and calibrating. This takes several minutes 10-15 minutes.

Once the calibration is complete, check the printout for anything that looks jagged or like ink blobs. If anything looks out of the ordinary, you may want to run to the menu and see if you can calibrate it again, or run the  head cleaner mode.
Mine was fine so I walked around the office with the calibration results telling everyone I have created a bar graph but couldn’t remember what it was for.
Just to see their frustration about wasted time and ink.
If you came here for drivers or manuals and made it this far, Here’s a link   .

Super Hero Symbols for Fire Alarm

As a fire alarm designer who has pretty much simplified fire alarm design, I’ve decided to make a handful of super hero symbols that resemble fire alarm symbols for autocad.
Understand that I can’t really use all of their symbols, and I can’t really figure out how to make them all relate.
So I stuck with the basic symbols.
Pull station = The Flashish looking
Smoke Detector = Supermanish looking
Waterflow = Wonder Womanish looking
Strobe = Captain America-ish looking
Horn Strobe = Green Lanternish looking
Duct Detector = Dare Devilish  looking
Smoke/Heat Combo – Dead Poolish
Tamper SWitch – Thor Hammerish looking
……And a few more

Right click and save 1600kb.

Of course the symbols do not look exactly like the actual character’s logos. That would just be weird. It’s kind of nice having them resemble the real deal.

Feel free to use these when messing around. These are not to be sold because… Well you know. Neither of us is Marvel or DC.
These autocad block for fire alarm design are also not NFPA  170 (and likely ahj) approved symbols. These do not  come with any guarantee of passing plans review at all. They do come with guarantee that I doubt they will pass but I won’t bet on that.
They are however in  their own blocks and can be dropped right in your autocad template for messing around.
Enjoy.
Here’s some more free fire alarm blocks for autocad

If you’d like to see more of my  work go to firealarmdwg.com For a large bundled set of Fire alarm symbols and blocks. About ten years of work.

 

Comment below if you have any requests or suggestions.