Hi,
I have been lurking on this site for a while now, and thought I might throw
in a few of my experiences.
I used to be a printer/proofer engineer and worked on many similar machines
if not a bit larger than your acerage home machine.
All of the DOD style printer I worked with were made by the company that
also manufacture Epson print heads.
The way that has always worked for me was to get a good look at the nozzles
and use either a lint free cloth soaked in Isopropyl alcohol and just press
it gently against the underside of the head. This almost always worked. It
may take a little time but will get there.
The other way was to use a cotton bud dipped in isopropyl alcohol and clean
the nozzles. Then wipe the head with a lint free cloth to get rid of all
the bits of cotton.
Running cleaning cycles is about a much use as shouting at it if you have
some subborn nozzles. When the head is clamped into the cleaning station
then it is sucking on all nozzles at the same time. If one is blocked and
the others are clear all it will do is suck the ink from the clean nozzle!
Isopropyl alcohol is a standard solvent available from most places. In the
UK we used to by it from RS Components but I think if you have a chat with a
chemist they can get it for you. It is, if memory serves me correctly, very
similar chemically to the solvent used in epson inks. (Which is why we used
it!)
Any way, enough of me. Sorry if I have been teaching any one to 'suck eggs'
I just thought I might help out a little.
Kind regards.
Andy
On 31/05/06, Stefan Trethan <stefan_trethan@...> wrote:
>
> On Wed, 31 May 2006 15:07:55 +0200, Russell Shaw <rjshaw@...>
> wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> > I needed to make a pcb. I hadn't used the Stylus 460 for atleast 6
> > months.
> > After a couple of nozzle cleans, the epson test print showed one black
> > line
> > missing. A half dozen more cleans wouldn't fix it. So i put in an old
> > black
> > cartridge after filling it with metholated spirits with a syringe. I did
> > dozens of cleans until the cartridge was empty, but it was still
> blocked.
> > I refilled the cartridge with "Hardworking Nifti" spray cleaner
> > detergent,
> > and did 20 more nozzle cleans. Now all nozzles work.
> > In linux, i just enter "escputil -c" 50 times (using the Bash shell
> > repeat
> > feature) and leave the printer to do 50 nozzle cleans. When i come back,
> > i
> > just enter "escputil -n" to do a nozzle check.
>
>
> Experience (of others, not me) has shown that a high number of head
> cleaning cycles rarely solves such a problem. If it isn't gone after 2 or
> 3 cycles the other 47 are unlikely to clear it. In such cases saturate the
> parking pad with steve's cleaning mix and drive the head onto it manually
> and let it sit. has cleaned every printer i tried it with right up.
>
> ST
>
>
>
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> Photos:
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>
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>
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