What Should You Do To Make Your Printer Last Forever?

[OM2]

I'm not sure if this is a dumb question...
But if I follow some rules... can I make my printer last forever?

For example:

- when low ink warning is shown - don't continue to print for a long time - else you'll burn the print head
- use genuine ink cartridges (yeah right!!) or refill with quality ink (won't risk clogging)

Anything else...?

Question: when one colour isn't printing... what should you do? Find £80 and buy a new printhead?
Buy a new cartridge for £10 - £15?
Or just give up after 10 deep cleans?

Question: what things cause a printer to die or stop working 95% of the time? I'm blindly assuming that there would only be 2/3 things that always go wrong

Thanks


Omar

 

[mikling]

The real answer is to leave it in the box.

After that chuckle.

Let's get to reality. Despite knowing more than the average person and sometimes advising others, I myself have disposed of printers as I had somewhat thought that I could make these things last forever.

Here is what I found. If you get a good sample, it will still eventually fail, despite all proper measures to mitigate that.

Most recently, I disposed of my MP500. It was on its second printhead and the second printhead acted up and then cured itself. Hat told me to not put away my MG8120 because I would eventually need it. He was right. It acted back up again with a bad nozzle check that looked so orderly that we knew what it was electronics related in the head.

That served me for many many years and it was in dally use. In its last days, the wipers started to accumulate pigment ink which would occasional spread to the Cyan channel and block the cyan. I would wipe clean the wipers and it would keep going still. We since discovered that the tubes in the wiper area had probably come off.... a common issue with purge units after several years. The connecting tubes in Canon appears to be a weak spot.

So despite having good condition cartridges at all times in the printer ( very important for Canon) and following a reset all routine etc. The printhead failed, in the Cyan. I could still use it but I would rather a proper working machine. Printhead failure is a common cause of problems in a Canon printer and failure is not always because of the ink used etc. Sometimes it just happens as the printhead ages and gets used.

I also have a broken Pro9000 sitting in storage now. Its printhead hardly printed more than 50 pages but it was stored away for 5+ years before using it. The printhead is obviously broken somehow as flushing etc will not bring it back. It's due for the recyclers.

 

[The Hat]

Omar,

If you can find a printer that will last forever, could you please PM me with your findings, I don’t want this lot to know about our little secret shush…

 

[mikling]

Calligraphy?

 

[The Hat]

Who would have taught it, busted by a pen pusher..?

 

[Ant]

When not in use I unplug my printer from the mains as its power supply will probably fail before anything else, this protects it from the spikes and surges and noise that it would otherwise be exposed too when I am not using the printer.

 

[The Hat]

Printers die from neglect just as much as they do from abuse, maybe even more..