Greetings Greg,
I can appreciate your frustration. I am taking your experience back to the
engineers I know so they are aware of your situation. They appreciate
feedback like this.
Actually, this condition might arise you may do not use your printer on a
regular basis. Personally, it has been my experience that if you do not
print often but leave the printer on when not in use, it will go through a
general startup process when you boot up your computer. Generally, when
you do, many do this every day, the printer will prepare itself for
printing in case you want to use it. If you do not print anything,
however, or let it sit idle without power, you have a greater chance of
needing to clean the head. I suspect this is something that might happen
to other printers as well. I know that with a couple of previous printers
that I have had, i.e. an Epson R200, and other Epsons, in the past that
this happened to me from time to time. The heads cleared but it cost me
the expense of doing the cleaning. I know it can get expensive.
Anyway, what I did was create a brief document that had all the colors and
black text then saved it as a file that I keep handy. The amount of ink
used is small. I make a print of it each week if I do not print some other
document. If I do make this print, I then flip over the paper and print
the same document on the other side to save paper. Doing this keeps my
printer ready for action. If you supply power to the printer, this may not
happen as often. I do not have a Kodak printer at home but I am sure this
process would work as well.
Talk to you soon, Greg,
Ron Baird
Eastman Kodak Company
the-changling said:
I love this printer when it works. But I do not print constantly. The
printer can be turned off for maybe a month or more. But when I need
it I need it. I had no problems over the years with my old Canon
Bubblejet 4300. But they do not make ink anymore so I got rid of it
and got the Kodak 5300. After a month off I tried printing and it was
very poor text. After calling their tech support, they sent a new
print head and ink. Printer was working flawlessly once again! Now
after an extended time turned off it is acting like a clogged print
head again. I called tech support again. They told me to keep deep
cleaning until the quality was good. They did not know how many that
would be. But that was the best they can do.
Is this normal for this printer? I am thinking it is.
Thanks in advance.
Hi Greg,
What you are suggesting is common and standard practice for inkjet
technology in order to keep the heads clear. With many cars the
manufacturer sets a standard of changing oil every 5000 - 7000 miles or 3
months (whether or not the vehicle is used, and assuming it is being run,
but infrequently) as a comparison to needed maintenance.
Since the Kodak is a new kid on the block some folks seem to expect
something revolutionary out of its design besides somewhat cheaper ink.
Now if Kodak wanted to gain some real noteworthiness and be first they
might consider designing an inkjet printer with easily refillable
cartridges. They'd gain glory by reusing the cartridges and truly save folks
money and resources. Think of the PR and accolades from environmentalists,
Consumers Union and NPR. That all translates into more business. Sell the
printer for double its current price and ink in bulk for something closer
and cheaper than what it really costs to make and folks will still stand in
line to get one of those printers. "The Peoples' Printer" At that rate Kodak
would even be giving the non-OEM inks a run for their business.
