Cleaning Carts

[herky1127]

Have had my fair share of clogged printheads on an ip3000. Have some questions about the pre-filled cleaning carts.

1. Does anyone use this for periodic maintenance and do you feel that they help?

2. How often do you use them? Weekly, monthly?

3. How do they work? I am guessing that you put them in the printer and run a cleaning or do you try to print and let the fluid spray onto a sheet of paper?

 

[ghwellsjr]

I have made my own cleaning carts using any empty carts I have available and filling them with straight ammonia which was recommended by the following site: [WARNING: don't use straight ammonia--just use Windex--read the rest of these posts for more information.]

http://www.outofinkandtoner.com.au/articles/article37.html

I don't do any periodic maintenance. I do periodic (several times per week) nozzle checks and when a problem occurs (which has only ever happened on the pigment black BCI-3eBK ink) I turn the printer off and back on. Most of the time, this clears up the problem but if it doesn't, I put in the ammonia [Windex] filled cartridge and print a page of solid "black". I then put the real black ink cartridge back in and print another page of solid black and do another nozzle check. Usually this clears up the problem but if not, I repeat the process until it does.

 

[fotofreek]

GH - I don't mean to contradict your post as you've brought a good link for us to read. Although I've used the original Windex that contains ammonia as a head cleaner I've seen posts warning against using straight ammonia. I clicked the link and read the article your referenced by Barry Shultz. He mentions that ammonia is nasty stuff.

He recommends first using either windex or a 10% ammonia/water solution, then trying 50/50 ammonia for a really tough clog, and only suggests straight ammonia for an hour bath if nothing else works. Before anyone brings out the bottle of ammonia to start clearing a clog I would suggest reading the whole article first.

I'd definitely avoid straight ammonia unless the printhead is otherwise considered a lost cause. Shultz's advice is wise about using the cleaning cart(s) with windex and, if the clog doesn't clear, leaving it til the next day to see if it clears overnight with the cleaning solution left in the nozzles before moving on to the stronger ammonia solutions.

 

[ghwellsjr]

You are right, fotofreek, that website does not recommend using "straight" ammonia in a cartridge. I really should have said it recommends ammonia as opposed to alcohol or some other solvent. The author does recommend using the weaker dilutions at first as you mentioned. Thanks for pointing this out. I would hate for something bad to happen to someone as a result of just reading my post and not the article.

But the rest of my post does accurately describe what I [used to] do. I figure [incorrectly] that if it's OK to soak a head in pure ammonia for up to 1 hour, then it must be OK to run pure ammonia through the head for just a few minutes. I never leave the ammonia filled cartridges in the printer for any length of time, just long enough to print a "black" page and then switch back to the real ink and print another black page. [NOTE: please read my next post to see why this is wrong.]

 

[fotofreek]

You can download "purge files" from MIS. They come in the color sets specific for each type of printer - 5 color, 6 color, etc. You can eliminate the color bars you don't want to use to save ink if you wish. I don't bother as I refill my carts for about $1 each.

 

[ocular]

My blue nozzle check and MIS purge pattern showed the blue wasn't printing properly.

I took out the print head and washed it under lab quality pure water and then a shallow soak in Windex. Its is interesting to see how the blue wicks out thru the top as there is no flow thru the this port. The other ports are clean and have no ink refluxing upwards.

I will leave this soak for a few hrs and see what happens.

This is a printhead from a MP730 (same printhead as IP3000). I bought the machine second hand and after an initial quick wash with windex the print head worked OK but only for a few days.

It would be good to come back and see the blue colour completely gone.

 

[AlienSteve]

In testing, I've found that stronger solutions of ammonia do not seem to improve it's ability to break up ink. In fact, solutions much weaker than 10% Household Ammonia to 90% distilled water worked just fine. Someone explained the chemical reasons to me once.

Also, although that site says the smell can bring you out of a coma, more likely it will put you in one! I find that with solutions 50% or stronger of household ammonia, even massive amounts of ventilation aren't enough.

So I use 1 part nonsudsing clear household ammonia, 5 parts distilled or filtered water, and 4 parts isopropyl alcohol.

I do not recommend using just alcohol, because it evaporates so quickly it can end up just moving a clog rather than rinsing it out.

 

[ghwellsjr]

I've learned my lesson about straight ammonia. It's not just nasty--it's wicked!

I had tried to vacuum fill an empty Epson cartridge with straight ammonia and because I wasn't having much success, I left the ammonia in a glass which was inside the plastic jar I use as my vacuum chamber. I left the cover on the plastic jar. A few days later I was horrified to see that the plastic on the inside of the jar was melting from the fumes of the ammonia and it was all gooey. Before this happened, I could see into this jar but now it's all frosted. From now on, I am just going to use Windex.

Another issue I hadn't considered before was that even though Barry Shultz suggests using straight ammonia on a stubborn head in a dish, he wasn't suggesting that for a head that is still in the printer because some of that ammonia goes through all kinds of plastic in the printer and probably ends up in a plastic container. For that he recommends only a 10% solution of ammonia or just Windex.

So thanks AlienSteve and fotofreek for alerting me to this problem. I think I will go back and edit all my posts referencing ammonia and make sure no one else has this problem.

 

[to3a]

hi a small of topic
after reading about this tehnic with ammonia im wondering ..
i have 3 epson stylos 1000 A3 printer its also have printing heads on the printer.
I tried with alkohol and some domestic fluid and with hot water to unplugg clogged printheads. Nothing helped and 2 years have past from then. So do you think is it possible to fix them now?

 

[ghwellsjr]

Your problem with the Epson printers, to3a, is probably not the print heads, but the vacuum tubes and cleaning pad that are generally located off to the right. See my experience at the end of this link:

http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=311

Or you can email Arthur Entlich requesting his Epson head cleaning manual at:

e-printerhelp@mvps.org