Best of two cleaning techniques

Hey all, I'm curious if you have experience with a tough clog where the blockage seems to move around and shrink and grow and shrink over time.
(Epson pro 9900)

I started noticing one tough blockage in my vivid magenta channel. Initially it stayed in the same spot but has since sort of migrated around in the top third of the test sheets. It has expanded to about 4 separate spots but will go back down to two or three and tends to be in the same area but not always the same spot, they are not always 100% clogs, often a partial line or a few little dots appear in the gap.

I have performed multiple cleaning cycles and cleaned the capping station, wiper blade, and used the windex paper towel soak a number of times. I started putting a few drops of windex on each channel of the capping station before putting the printer to sleep, this is when the blockage started moving around and small droplets began making their way through.

I imagine this might be related to a few hard chunks next to an air bubble inside the head. Does any one have advice based on experience? I'm not in dire need of printing at the moment but would like to be able to start making good prints in the next few weeks to build up inventory for holiday sales.

In the past with my R1800 I gently put warm cleaning solution through the heads with a syringe. It cleared the clogs and I haven't had as many issues with it in years now. I'm a little less excited to try that with the Pro 9900.

You bet, in fact I just fixed mine having the same exact same problem. It seems that the 9900 ink has a tendency to form little flakes inside the head that float around and plug alternating jets. You can run cleaning cycles all you want (and waste lots of ink doing so) but it will never come clean. You can also print and print and print in an attempt to clean the head that way (and also waste a lot of ink), but it still won't work. You can also try cleaning the wiper blade and do all the other recommended maintenance, and it still won't work (as you can guess I did all this first).

There is only one way to clean those particles out, you have to buy a set of 3rd party ink cartridges (and chip resetters, one for the 350ml 3rd party ink cartridges and one for the waste tanks) and fill them with cleaning fluid (I used a 50/50 mixture of Simple Green and distilled water) then do a head flush and wait 24 hrs to soak, then run a heavy cleaning cycle (or two), do a nozzle check (which is really hard to see as it's a faint green--next time I may add food coloring), let soak for another 24 hrs, run another cleaning cycle, do a nozzle check and then repeat for as many days (or weeks) as necessary until the nozzle checks are always perfect without doing any cleaning cycles. I was hoping for a rapid cleaning, but It took me about 3 weeks of doing this until my nozzles are perfectly clean and stayed that way. Much patience is required (and some money) but it will ultimately work.

Mike Earussi said:

but It took me about 3 weeks of doing this until my nozzles are perfectly clean and stayed that way. Much patience is required (and some money) but it will ultimately work.

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That to me seems such awful lot of Friggin around just to keep your printer in good condition, would you not cut to the chase and get a Canon, just think of how many prints you could have done in that time and with all that ink...?

I’m just saying...
P.S. Nice cleaning method dough, thanks for sharing...

First of all I'm stubborn, I just wanted to know how to actually clean the nozzles. Second, a new Canon costs $4,000, this was appreciably cheaper.

A little update on this:

I kept printing for a while not really having degradation in print quality, my orange was starting to get some clogs too so, I did order a set of cartridges and some cleaning fluid. I performed the cartridge swap, fill cycle, sit and wait, purge patters prints, cleaning cycle, purge pattern, test print. After a long weekend I was getting clear test prints! So on Monday I went back to OEM inks and when I printed a test pattern my orange went back to having blockages and the Magenta did too(not as severe). I'm low on orange so will have to wait on a replacement cartridge to run a few cleaning cycles to see if it clears up.

But I noticed on the test prints my orange pattern bulges in the middle where the blockages are, this started before running cleaning fluid through. I ran a few head alignments but it didn't seem to make a difference, Is this a result of the clog? Any one else have this issue?

In my Epson experience, missing nozzle check segments that change/move around/appear-disappear is most likely caused by air in the printhead, not clogging...

As for the bulging lines in orange, that might not be a good sign for the health of the printhead.

I would let the printer sit unused overnight and then try another nozzle check.

Thanks a lot turbguy, I was more worried about that bulge than anything else, I'm hoping that whatever is blocking the nozzles in the orange will dissolve and maybe if the bulge is related to back pressure, it will resolve the problem.... Fingers extremely crossed.

Actually, the color at issue is Magenta (not orange)...

turbguy said:

Actually, the color at issue is Magenta (not orange)...

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So, I think the print head is dead. The magenta has improved a little/ the gaps move, but the orange is significantly worse.

I can't print anything that has orange and expect it to look good.

Does anyone have experience building new custom profiles to compensate for a color not working? I feel like orange is one that should not be necessary since I have yellow and vivid magenta. Is there anyway to kill that channel and compensate with ICC? Or am I at a point where it's time for a new printhead? I bought this secondhand and have had it for two years I think it's probably 4 or five years old, total print count is <1000 more than half have been mine and mostly nozzle checks and small jobs.