A number of posts have emphasized the importance of not letting a printer remain idle for extended periods of time. Because of business travel I'm sometimes unable to exercise my printers for as long as two weeks. I use Canon printers with cartridges that can be removed form the printhead. Would it be useful to employ the following strategy before an extended trip?
1. Temporarily remove the current cartridges from the printhead.
2. Install a set of homemade head cleaning cartridges (filled only with head cleaning solvent).
2. Print five pages of a test pattern using the head cleaning cartridges.
3. Reinstall the original ink-filled cartridges in the printhead.
4. Pull the power plug so that the printer will not run a head cleaning operation until I return from my trip.
1. Temporarily remove the current cartridges from the printhead.
2. Install a set of homemade head cleaning cartridges (filled only with head cleaning solvent).
2. Print five pages of a test pattern using the head cleaning cartridges.
3. Reinstall the original ink-filled cartridges in the printhead.
4. Pull the power plug so that the printer will not run a head cleaning operation until I return from my trip.