Following on from some discussion on the forums regarding blocked heads I thought I'd share my method of clearing them.
Before we start, this method does not work on the the C range, C60 C70 et al. To my knowledge all other Epson printers have the same basic set up internally, at least the parts we are interested in.
Because of the Epson design of print head with their very tiny nozzles, when not used for a while ink can dry up at the exposed end of a nozzle and block it, causing banding or loss of a colour in your prints. Continued cleaning cycles can be expensive and wasteful of ink and may not succeed in clearing the blockage, a method which I found on the net some years ago works well and is easy to do.
You need... Isopropyl Alcohol (surgical spirit) which you can get from a chemist very cheaply though you 'may' have to sign for it, do not use meths or any other spirit which may have 'bits' in it. A small syringe and a thin tube or pipe, the pipe attachment from a compressed air spray/duster tin is ideal but not a used one from an oil tin for obvious reasons. The syringe I use came from a J&B ink refilling kit I bought years ago.
Start by getting the print head into position where you can access the cartridges and see into the well of the offending colour. I do this by starting a cleaning cycle and cutting the power to the printer when the head gets to where I need it to be. Remove the cartridge and look into its well, you should see at the bottom a small sharp vertical spike, this is hollow and is where the ink is drawn into the print head.
The pipe which should fit snugly into the syringe is there because the spike can be quite deep down and hard to reach with just the syringe itself which also blocks your view into the well. Fill the syringe with spirit, you're not going to use it all but it will save you introducing air into the print head if you fill it up. Fit the pipe over the end of the spike with the syringe attached and, making sure the fit is snug at both ends squirt perhaps 5 -10ml through the printhead, any spillage can be soaked up with kitchen roll afterwards. The spirit will liquify the dryed up ink and clear the blockage. Replace the ink cartridge and turn the power back on so it completes its cleaning cycle, run a couple of sheets of plain paper through the machine to catch any remaining spirit or ink mess and bob's your uncle as they say.
From experience the spike in the ink well is pretty sturdy but you should treat it with respect anyway and take care not to damage it.
This is a bit of a long winded explanation of a trick that takes only a couple of minutes to do and is very successful in clearing blockages, however if you are not a hands on person, not confident that you can do it or are worried that you may break something there are other methods. You can now buy cleaning cartridges for most printer models which you fit in place of the offending ink one and contain cleaning fluid that will do much the same job as described above.
Later models of Epsons are much less prone to this problem, my R200 is at time of writing 10 months old and used once or twice a week (with compatible inks in it) has never had a blockage yet.
St.P
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