How do I stop my inks drying?

[OM2]

I've taken my inks out of my MP830
In a previous post, someone suggested soaking my printhead (which is causing problems) in distilled water

I've done this - but how do I stop the inks from drying out?

Thanks


OM

 

[qwertydude]

Is this inks in the print head or inks in the cartridges? If you're talking about the print heads you first want to remove as much ink from that as possible. I lay the print head on a bunch of folded paper towels and drip windex on the metal screens. This forces the ink into the paper towels. Keep dripping windex on the screens til you see that no more ink is coming out of the print head on the paper towels. Then I drip distilled water through to clean out any windex residue. After that the print head is now empty and should keep indefinitely. When removing it though you'll want to manually prime them, I do this by dripping windex through the print head again, install it in the printer, put the cartridges in and run a cleaning cycle. Then just to be safe I let the printer rest overnight before printing to get everything to settle. This has kept my Canon print heads safely in storage a year, it could probably keep for longer but I ended up needing the stored print head after a year.

 

[OM2]

Is this inks in the print head or inks in the cartridges? If you're talking about the print heads you first want to remove as much ink from that as possible. I lay the print head on a bunch of folded paper towels and drip windex on the metal screens. This forces the ink into the paper towels. Keep dripping windex on the screens til you see that no more ink is coming out of the print head on the paper towels. Then I drip distilled water through to clean out any windex residue. After that the print head is now empty and should keep indefinitely. When removing it though you'll want to manually prime them, I do this by dripping windex through the print head again, install it in the printer, put the cartridges in and run a cleaning cycle. Then just to be safe I let the printer rest overnight before printing to get everything to settle. This has kept my Canon print heads safely in storage a year, it could probably keep for longer but I ended up needing the stored print head after a year.

oh... gulp!
my question was about the ink cartridges - how do i stop them from drying?

BUT i didn't know u had to do all of that to the print head!
i 'just soaked half of it in distilled water
will this cause even more damage?
i'm pretty sure the ink head is gone - just need to test to verify - before i contemplate buying a new one

hmmm

 

[ghwellsjr]

The best way to store cartridges is to seal their outlet ports with vinyl tape and seal of any refill holes but leave the air vent on the top of the cartridge open. Then put the cartridges in a ziplock bag with a piece of dampened paper towel.

 

[qwertydude]

Distilled water is actually quite safe for electronics as long as you never powered up the print head while it was wet or even if there was still moisture on the electronics. What you can do to remove any possible ink residue that may have left itself on any electronics is actually fully submerge the print head in distilled water, you'll notice ink will dissolve in the water. Then remove the print head and shake off the water and soak it again in new distilled water. Keep repeating this until ink is no longer visible then let it completely dry, a couple days in a warm environment is usually goo. Then you basically have a sterile print head and as long as it was never powered up while moist it should work.

 

[l_d_allan]

seal their outlet ports with vinyl tape

Is "vinyl tape" the same as "electrical tape"? Thx.

 

[ghwellsjr]

seal their outlet ports with vinyl tape

Is "vinyl tape" the same as "electrical tape"? Thx.

Most electrical tapes are made out of vinyl but you want to get a thin one that will stretch and form a good seal across the outlet port. And it would be nice to get one that doesn't leave an adhesive residue when you remove it many month later.

 

[meimnothere]

Windex??

 

[ghwellsjr]

Windex is an American window cleaning product. In some other countries there is a similar product called Windolene and in the UK there is a similar product sold in Halford's auto shops.

 

[l_d_allan]

Is Windex suitable to be used in a set of "cleaning cartridges" when you've got a printer with chipped cartridges? I've seen threads with recipes for cleaning cartridges and for print-head cleaning, but some of those were several years old.

What is the current consensus, if any, whether Windex is ok for Canon die-based printers? Or can you start with Windex and blend in something else? The wiki article for Windex mentioned it has been "recently reformulated with more environmentally desirable solvents".

My speculation is that with non-chipped carts, you'd just need one cleaning cart, but several or a whole set with a chipped printer?

Or would an acceptable practice with something like my 9000-2 chipped printer be that:
* if your nozzle check was problematic
* and several cleanings and then deep cleanings and waiting a day or so didn't clear it up,
* you could see if you have a cart for that color ready for refilling,
* purge it,
* put a small amount of Windex in it,
* try regular and then deep cleaning if necessary
* and see if that cleared up the problem?

Or is that flawed? Too much potential for cross-contanimation?

Or rather than Windex (or some other recipe), start with plain/tap/distilled water first?