Carriage+Motion+Error

=I get "Carriage Motion Error" every time I turn on the printer.=


 * Problem:** Every time I turn on the printer, I get "Carriage Motion Error" right after the "Initializing" message on the Display Screen. The printer tells me to "Power Up Again". Holding the power button down for several seconds has no effect. I had to unplug the machine to shut it off, but when I plug it in and start it up again, the same thing happens.


 * Resolution:** Look for a thin mylar strip running behind the printheads which should be sitting in a little guide tab, but has probably fallen out. Put the mylar strip back in place. Recommended by Canon support, one poster reports permanent resolution of the problem. The Canon tech said he gets about three calls a week for this problem.


 * Update:** This did not resolve the problem for one poster. The Canon Support Techs came out, tried the initialization, got the same message and proceeded to take the printer apart. They quickly zeroed in on the culprit: one of the blue plastic lids on the print head carriage had somehow opened -- probably in shipment, they said -- and it had been keeping the carriage from moving past the plastic lip over the left chamber where it rests. Kind of like a semi truck too high to fit under an overpass.


 * Addendum:** A third poster had a slightly different experience: I had the very same problem. I called Canon Support and they told me to gently pull on the mylar strip to attempt to "re-seat" it. This didn't work and in fact, the mylar strip hung limp after that. Since it would be several days until the tech could get to me (it was late Thursday) I asked if there was anything that I could try to fix this problem. I'm pretty comfortable with mechanical things, so I thought maybe they could talk me through a solution. They agreed and off we went! I was on my bluetooth headset so I had both hands free while I talked to the repair guy.

We began by taking off the top panels on the left side to determine if the mylar strip had disconnected on that side. We found out that it was fine on that side. Then we set out to dissassemble the covers on the right side. After doing that, we determined two things:

1. The cover that snaps down over the print heads had popped up in shipping and wasn't allowing the print head carriage to travel out to the middle of the printer. That answered the question of the "Carriage Motion Error".

2. The limp mylar strip problem. Turns out that it attaches to a flexible metal portion of the housing that acts as a spring to hold it in tension. When they had asked me to gently tug on that strip during my first phone call, I had inadvertently bent that metal piece, thus not allowing it to hold the mylar strip in its proper tension. I re-bent that metal piece, resulting in proper tension on the mylar strip and voila! We were in business.

Then just about 20 more minutes to re-assemble the casing and I was ready to move on with my setup.

A few thoughts about this process... first, I was really bummed to receive my printer and then have a problem that was going to cause me a 4 day delay before I could see a print. I don't exactly blame Canon - their closest repair guy was 9 hours away and it was going to take some time before he could come to my home.

Second, I'm actually amazed that the repair tech was willing to talk me through a fairly difficult process of dissassembling much of the casing of the printer. Boy, was I glad he was willing to do this! At the end of the call, he joked that he would have to send some service calls my way if anyone else in my area (Northwest Arkansas) had problems...


 * December 31, 2014: by Douglas Wachter, Santa Fe, NM**

My ipf5100 was shutting down as soon as I started the machine, sometimes even before the cassette paper was loaded, and usually mid-print. When this happened, I consistently got a "carriage motion error" message (or hardware error 03130031-2F13).The display also told me to turn off the printer and then turn it back on. I did this, to no benefit. After several attempts to discover the cause of the problem online, I downloaded the ipf5100 service manual, for $7.00, and studied the section on the carriage mechanism. Then I called Canon USA and talked to a tech. Together, we zeroed in on the problem: the smooth, clear mylar strip above the tan "toothed" carriage travel belt, in the back of the printer head. The encoder strip is "read" by the encoder detector, which is mounted on the back of the printhead assembly. That detector reads a series of tiny black lines on the strip so the carriage knows just where it is at all times. The mylar strip had become disengaged from the slots on the back of the printhead, preventing encoder detection. This caused the carriage assembly to operate "blind," so that the carriage motion was uncontrolled, triggering the "carriage motion error." . On the left and right sides off the top of the back of the printhead are slots that the mylar strip " travels" through (it's actually the printhead that moves, the mylar strip being stationary, its ends held in a fixed position by attachments at each end. In my case, the strip was engaged with the left slot but not the right one. When the mylar strip is properly aligned with the printhead, the top of the strip is just below the top of the printhead. When you press gently on the mylar strip, just to the left and right of the printhead, you can feel it press against the back of the adjacent slot, much like a guitar string presses against the frets, creating a small "dip" against the tension of the string.. If it is not properly engaged, pressing on the encoder strip will cause it to "dip" significantly inward against the tension on the strip, maybe a quarter inch or so beyond the back of the printhead. Where it is disengaged (left and/or right), gently pull the strip underneath the upside down slot and guide it into the slot (it will naturally rise to the top of the slot).

After I did this, the hardware error message disappeared. I had to do a couple of A cleanings and one B cleaning before the nozzle check prints looked perfect. Then all was well.