dried print heads

[UCDznutz]

I've got an Epson Stylus Color 880 and i just installed a new color ink cartridge after hmmm a couple months. I know i lagged on getting some new ink, but now that i've put it in, it seems that the colored ink won't print. I suppose the print head dried out while having no colored ink in there. Is there any way to fix this or am i screwed now and need to get a new printer?

 

[corkyg]

Check with Epson about cleaning the head - and run the cleaning cycle (flushes ink through the head) a couple of times. This is a fairly common problem with Epson printers.

 

[thortyboy]

hmm i know of a client that likes to "massage" the cartridge.. just not too sensual. hahahaha
but seriously. he does. and he says it works sometimes

 

[Peter]

When you've replaced an ink cartridge, you need to run a cleaning cycle to make the new ink arrive at the nozzles. Chances are however that the print head has dried out - especially if the old ink cartridge has been completely dry (or worse, not even in the printer) for a while.

With Canon or HP printers, take the print head out and soak it on a wet towel for an hour or so. With an Epson, no such trick. Good luck.

regards, Peter

 

[corkyg]

Originally posted by: Peter
With Canon or HP printers, take the print head out and soak it on a wet towel for an hour or so. With an Epson, no such trick. Good luck. regards, Peter

With Canon, yes - but HP printheads are normally incorporated into the cartridge. When you replace the ink cart, you get a brand new print head.

Epson, like Canon, uses "permanent" heads and they are expensive to replace. Epson's are so finely tuned with "picoliters" that they have always been more prone to drying out and clogging than other brands.The best defense is to run a weekly print of a test page as part of normal maintenance.

 

[vailr]

Try using Windex (or another liquid cleaner with ammonia). Remove the ink cartridge and spray the prong that pokes into the bottom of the cartridge. Also spray the small sponge that the print head rests on when powered off. Replace cartridge and power off. Let soak for 20-30 minutes, then run the "Epson Head Cleaning Utility". If extremely dried out, try forcing Windex into the prong, using a syringe.

 

[Mem]

Run the cleaning cycle more then 5 times ,btw you can buy special cleaning carts for the Epson 880 that clean the print heads if all else fails.

 

[Peter]

Nope, Canon's later models still do not use permanent heads. They're semi-permanent if you please - you don't HAVE to throw them out with every round of ink, but still, they're replaced (or taken out to clean or soak) at the flick of a lever, and they're way less expensive than Epson's piezo heads. The entire current product line is like this.

And besides, even the disposable head-ink monoblocks do dry out before they get empty - especially with people who don't print much, and especially with HP's DeskJet 500 through 999 printers because the sealing lid in the head's parking position wears and warps very quickly, losing its airtightness. The soaking trick works with those too, of course ... particularly with HP's that have the lowest resolution and thus largest nozzles of them all.

regards, Peter

 

[maddmax]

Here's a link that I bookmarked while working on a friends Epson 860. If you have some older cartridges lying around, you can use a baby's medicine dropper to run isopropyl alcohol into the cartridge itself. Peel the top label off and you'll find a fill hole. Then use the printers clean and nozzle check utilities to be sure all colors show up correctly. Adding isopropyl in this fashion cleaned the color print heads just fine. In my friends case the black print head was particularly stubborn. To clean this, I removed the cartridge and applied one drop of alcohol directly on top of the circle where the ink flows into the printhead. After it passed the nozzle check test, we removed our alcohol diluted "cleaning cartridges", installed new ones and calibrated. It now prints as good as new. Good luck.