How to clean the paper rollers on your canon printer

When we install a continuous ink system on our canon printers, and leave the ink tanks misplaced or in a higher angle than the actual ink cartridges, we usually see some ink bleeding from the tanks and land on the paper feeding rollers.

The paper sheets go through these rollers before coming out of the printer, so we could even say these rollers are responsible for transporting the sheets from one side to the other. If these rollers get dirty, the pages will also come out dirty and have a permanent streak of lines printed on the sheets, even if the ink cartridges aren’t releasing ink anymore. The following picture will show you how these rollers look.

presenting printer printing rollers

These rollers must be clean at all times, since the pages will be expulsed by them. The canon brand is well aware of this complication, so they have created a small tool to clean these rollers without having to get your hands in the printer.

You can use this tool by accessing your printer’s printer properties menu. On this menu you will also be able to notice the great interface canon has added to their printers. 

If you wish to access these tools on your canon printer, and have it clean the rollers itself, please stick to the following steps:

Step #1:

First, remove all the sheets from the printer’s entry paper tray, which you can usually find on the top of the printer. This is where the blank sheets enter the printer. Please remember to remove the printer completely sheet-free.

Step #2:

Afterwards, you must access the printer’s settings menu. You will need to follow one of the steps described below depending on the operating system you’re using. If you don’t know what’s yours, please read the following post to find out. Now that you’ve identified the system running on your printer, pyou may continue with this procedure.

1. For windowsxp, click on start menu - control panel - printers and other hardware - printers and faxes.

2. For windows7, you must only click on start menu - printer devices.

Please stick to the procedure that suits the operating system installed your own printer model. Now, open the file menu and select printer preferences, which is usually the third option from the top. This will open a new window where you’ll be able to customize your printer’s drivers.

print properties

Step #3:

Once you’ve reached the printer properties menu, look for the maintenance option in it. It’s usually located on the upper-right part of the menu, or on the first widget from right to left.

maintenance tab

Then, click on maintenance, look for the image that portrays the roller cleaning process, and click on it too. You must make sure the printer stays on until you’re done with this procedure. The roller cleaning image we mentioned usually looks like the one we’re about to show you.

icon for cleaning roller

Step #4:

Now that the cleaning process is done, please follow the procedure indicated by your printer and load three (3) A4 paper sheets. The sheets will be ejected from the printer and the procedure will be finished. If the problem continues and your rollers remain dirty, please repeat the entire cleaning tutorial.

Note: If the problem persists and notice the printer has stopped removing the stains from the roller, you will need to do this manually.

In order to clean them by hand, you must follow these instructions:

Turn the printer off - dab a piece of cloth in alcohol - clean the dirty area - move the rollers to get both sides cleaned - let the alcohol dry and repeat this procedure again.

If you need any help with this, please post a comment in the section below this post and we will gladly get back to you.