Miss Perspicacia Tick wrote:
By 'cleaning' the printheads you are merely exacerbating the problem. All
the 'cleaning' cycle does is lay down more ink, on top of what's already
there, and makes the issue worse. You now have two choices: -
You state this regularly, and it is simply incorrect under several of
the circumstances you have responded to. If the nozzles are clogged,
and that is the principal reason ink doesn't print from the printer when
it goes through the motions and no ink appears on the paper, then
cleaning cycles do nothing. They neither make things worse, nor do they
use up any ink.
You are correct that if the head is partially clogged, where some
nozzles are functional, a lot of ink is likely to come out of the
nozzles that are clear and none out of the clogged ones, and that's a
waste of ink. Typically, if the clog is not resolved with 3 cleaning
cycles, it is best to move on to another method.
Epson printers use a passive vacuum system to clear the heads. The
vacuum is applied to the outside surface of the head. If the nozzles
are clogged, due to dried ink on their outer surface, which is almost
always the cause of a no print condition, then no ink comes out of them,
and the vacuum cleaning is unsuccessful. Things don't get any better,
but they also don't get any worse.
In this circumstance, the first thing to try is to fill the waste ink
station with a solvent, as you say, an ammoniated window cleaner is best
for the inks used with both Epson dye and pigment inks, and set the
heads back there and allow the solvent to dissolve the ink on the
surface of the head. This often is all that is required, short term,
and then a few cleaning cycles and its good.
Another technique is to use a quality paper towel dampened with the same
liquid which is carefully positioned under the head and the head is
carefully dragged across the towel to remove dried ink. Finally, if
that doesn't work (and several attempts can be made) it may be necessary
to make up cleaning cartridges, as you mentioned. This is explained in
detail in the cleaning manual I distribute by request via email at no
charge.
As to not using the old cartridges again, that really depends. If the
cause of the clogs to begin with is that the ink in the cartridges
became dried out and too thick (rare) then I'd agree. With the newer
chipped cartridges, well, they are designed to be removed and reused,
and there is absolutely no reason not to reuse them once the clog is fixed.
And even with the non-chipped cartridges, there is a method to almost
eliminate the risk of an airlock, so again, unless the ink in the
cartridge is bad, there is no reason not to reuse the cartridge and use
up the ink in it.
As much as your information is useful, it has a number of errors in it
which you should correct if you wish to benefit those who read it.
BTW, I have been helping people to unclog their Epson printers for
nearly 10 years now, and some of the techniques you discuss in your
instructions, I developed and disseminated ages ago, so no flames please.
Art
