How long can I use an All in One printer and NOT ever ever print?

[Paul Verizzo]

Don't turn it off. End of problems, real and alleged.

 

[ghwellsjr]

She had the PGI-5 cart pulled out and shut down the printer. I don't know how long she had the cart pulled. After refilling the PGI-5 the nozzle check printed a blank grid pattern. The print head was completely dried up and clogged. The amazing thing is all the rest 4 photo colors were perfect. This tells me one thing. I am convinced that to store a printer it is OK to just keep the carts in the printer then leave it alone.

That is generally true for dye ink, but it certainly isn't true for the pigment ink. I have looked at a lot of used MP780 and iP4000 and i860 printers (all use the same print head) and, of course the first thing I do is a nozzle check. If I find a lot of missing segments from the grid, I ask the seller how long the printer has been unplugged. They usually say six months or more. (These printers had all the cartridges in place with some ink in them.) Sometimes I can unclog these nozzles, sometimes not. If I cannot after several tries, I offer $20 for the printer because a new print head costs $55 and I think a fair price for a fully functional printer is $75. If they refuse, then I never know if the print head can be unclogged, but sometimes I cannot unclog the ones that I get for $20.

The safe way to store a printer is to do deep cleaning cycles until there is no ink left in the print head. With the older unchipped cartridges, this is very easy to do. With the new cartridges, you have to make some empty cartridges just for this purpose.