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| RE : My cartridge is printing faded and print head seems to be clogged. What can I do to make it work? |
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You may try priming the cartridge. Priming the cartridge is a process that allows the print head to open up for the ink to come through. What you do is get a damp paper towel, press and hold on the print head (copper strip facing down) for around 20-30 seconds. This will bring the ink to the surface of the print head, open up and print heads that might be blocked and the flow of the ink will start again. Just put the cartridge back in the printer ready to use.
General maintenance and ink cartridge care
Providing a remanufactured printer cartridge hasn't suffered any electronic breakdown which will be indicated by a flashing light on the printer or an error message stating this on your computer screen, there are certain procedures that the user can carry out to assist smooth operation of the remanufactured / refilled ink cartridge, details of this are enclosed in the remanufactured inkjet cartridge box.
Unlike original inkjet cartridges, remanufactured inkjet cartridges usually require head cleaning once they have been installed into the printer. Compatible inkjet cartridges such as Epson do not require the inkjet cartridge to be cleaned as they have no print head, however the printer that uses the inkjet cartridge does have a print head and this type of printer requires head cleaning regularly regardless of replacing ink cartridges, because the head is a permanent part of the printer and isn't changed every time you install a new ink cartridge. Epson, Xerox and some Canon printers use this method.
Head Cleaning
Head cleaning is carried out using either the ink button on the printer (press and hold for about 3 seconds) or through the printer software. The cleaning utility is available from a number of places such as, your printer properties box / window, your computer control panel under printers & faxes and many other places on your computer.
Head cleaning can be listed under a number of different options depending on your printer software, such as; Utilities, Maintenance, Print Manager, Control Manager, Tool Box & many others.
Cartridge & Printer Care
Do keep print cartridges sealed in the original packaging until ready to use. Ink can evaporate through the nozzles and the plastic print cartridge body, reducing print cartridge life. Therefore, print cartridges have a longer life when sealed in the packaging. ?
After opening the print cartridge, do store the print cartridges in the printer in the "home position" to help prevent ink from drying out in the nozzles. This will minimize the risk of contamination with airborne dust particles
Do press the POWER button to turn the printer off, rather than unplugging the printer. Do not unplug the printer without turning off the power button first. Pressing the POWER button caps the print cartridge in the service station, preventing ink from drying in the print cartridge nozzles.
Do store print cartridges at room temperature. Do not re-tape the print cartridge if removing from the printer. If a print cartridge must be removed, store at room temperature in a rigid sealed plastic container. Make sure that the nozzles on the bottom of the print cartridge do not touch the side of the container.
Do store unopened print cartridges in an upright position. Do not store the unopened print cartridge on its side for long periods of time.
Your printer software will now take you through the head cleaning procedure.
Control Panel:
On some printer's software, the only way to access head cleaning is to double click on 'My Computer' then click on 'Control Panel' and select 'Printers & Faxes'. The next step could be to click on properties, maintenance, control manager or some other word relating to printer maintenance. There can be a large variety of different words for printer maintenance, far too many to research and list. Please read your printer manual for details of printer maintenance.
HP & Lexmark all in 1 PSC Printers (Print Scan Copy):
Printer maintenance is carried out using an LCD display on the printer. To access head cleaning or other periodic maintenance, first press the menu button, then scroll through the different menus and press enter when you see 'maintenance' appear on the LCD. Scroll through until you see the item of maintenance you require, then press enter. The printer will then carry out the task automatically
HP Inkjet Printers:
On modern printers, cartridge maintenance is carried out using the 'Tool box' via your HP program. To access the 'Tool Box', first check that the full HP program has been installed from your HP printer driver disk, then follow these steps:
On Windows based PC's, click on the [ Start ] button (bottom left of your computer screen), click on 'programs' or 'all programs', click on 'HP' or 'Hewlett Packard', click on your model (if more than one printer is installed on your PC) & then click on 'Tool box'.
A properties box will appear on screen, giving you access to a variety of functions and maintenance for your printer and the inkjet cartridges. You can carry out cleaning & priming of the ink cartridges here, you can align the cartridge heads, you can print a test page, you can check your ink usage and remaining ink levels and many more functions.
If the Tool Box is not installed, follow the Control Panel steps above.
Nozzle Check
This prints out a pattern in black and three colors (5 colors on photo printers & just black on mono printers). The software will show you a picture of how the pattern should look and if there are any missing lines, you need to clean the print heads.
Print Head Alignment
This is to align the black & color print heads. It will print out a series of lines with numbers beneath, just look at the lines to see which number corresponds to the best aligned and type that number into the onscreen box provided. There are usually two sets to check, but on some printers there may be only one or more than two.
Alignment cannot be carried out until both the black & color cartridges are printing correctly, i.e. do not require any further cleaning or priming and produce all the correct colors without any missing areas.
Running out of ink
If you have left your Epson inkjet printer without ink for any length of time, ink will dry & harden on the heads and it will require quite a lot of cleaning to clear the hardened ink from the heads. After you have completed the cleaning process once, the software usually takes you into a nozzle check [Print nozzle check pattern], this is fine when just cleaning generally, but when the printer has been left for a period without ink, doing a nozzle check after one clean only causes more clogging problems, especially after a couple of hours without ink where air gets trapped between the print head and the ink from the new cartridge.
We have found that the only way to clear the blockage is to carry out 4 to 5 or more cleans in a row before doing a nozzle check. Therefore, every time the software finishes cleaning and a box appears asking you to print nozzle check pattern, you need to cancel this and click on head cleaning again. Repeat this 4 to 5 times or more, then print the nozzle check pattern to see how the head cleaning is progressing. If necessary, repeat the procedure above until the print-out shows some improvement. Remember that cleaning uses quite a lot of ink so have a spare ink cartridge as a back up, otherwise you will be back where you started. In order not to have to carry out these drastic procedures, never leave your printer without ink for any length of time, always have a spare ink cartridge ready to fit and re-order 2 ink cartridges every time you fit your last cartridge, this goes for the black & color cartridges.
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