For your clients with inkjet printers, do them a favor, tell them they need to print at least monthly

[britechguy]

It seems that recently I have been receiving a number of calls about printer repair. For virtually all of them when an inkjet printer is involved, if I do a bit of information digging with the potential client (BTW: I don't do printer repairs) most end up saying something like one this morning did: "I rarely used it."

The complaint is virtually always that the thing stopped printing and that head cleaning does nothing. Well, once you've allowed a print head to sit idle for months and deep, hard ink plugs have formed, the cleaning technique that the printer itself uses will do nothing.

I tell these folks that they should have a look at YouTube about how to remove the print head from their machines (if it's not one of the "nozzles in cartridge" variety) and to give it a good soak in distilled water for a day to let the ink plugs dissolve, then put the nozzle side down on a stack of paper towels after the soaking to allow the print head to dry, thoroughly, before reinstalling it. I've saved quite a few inkjet printers from the dump with this advice, and it's gotten me lots of return business for other issues at a later date.

You've got to print either a small color photo, or else a nozzle check pattern, at least once a month to make sure these ink plugs do not have a chance to form.

 

[britechguy]

As it happens, this person has an Epson ET-2760, and apparently this issue has become common enough that Epson has now introduced what it calls a "Power Cleaning" technique, which is like a deep-clean on steroids, and that ended up working.

Just so that info from Epson is on record here: https://files.support.epson.com/doc...ce/ink_functions/concepts/power_cleaning.html

 

[lan101]

I've told a lot people to go to google.com and print that page once or twice a month if they don't use it a lot. Whether they do that or not is on them lol.

 

[britechguy]

Whether they do that or not is on them lol.

Absolutely. But no one ever tells folks (and I include myself in the "never told by someone else" category) that inkjet printers will, almost invariably, stop working due to ink plugs if they are not used for long periods of time. You're lucky if you happen to have a model where the print head is not a part of a cartridge, as at least those can be popped out for "the soak treatment" and that often works.

But it's just so much easier to print something if you know that this must be done on an even kinda-sorta regular basis.

 

[carmen617]

I just tell my very low volume printing clients to forget about color printing and buy a small Brother laser printer. They hardly print at all, so why should they need color on the few occasions they do? If they want to print photos, the printer isn't going to be good enough quality regardless, so just upload them to CVS or Walmart to print. They can buy the least expensive Brother laser printer for just a little bit more than replacing a set of HP ink cartridges, and the Brother starter toner will last them about 700 pages - many of them never even have to buy a replacement cartridge. It doesn't matter if they turn the printer off for a year and then turn it on for 3 pages, the toner will still work. Can't tell you how many of those I have installed over the years, and never a complaint.

 

[lan101]

I just tell my very low volume printing clients to forget about color printing and buy a small Brother laser printer. They hardly print at all, so why should they need color on the few occasions they do? If they want to print photos, the printer isn't going to be good enough quality regardless, so just upload them to CVS or Walmart to print. They can buy the least expensive Brother laser printer for just a little bit more than replacing a set of HP ink cartridges, and the Brother starter toner will last them about 700 pages - many of them never even have to buy a replacement cartridge. It doesn't matter if they turn the printer off for a year and then turn it on for 3 pages, the toner will still work. Can't tell you how many of those I have installed over the years, and never a complaint.

Exactly the same advice I give too.

 

[HCHTech]

There is no reason that the manufacturers of inkjet printers couldn't build in an automatic print once every 30 days, but the cynic in me tells me that is not in their best interest, so don't hold your breath.

 

[britechguy]

@HCHTech: This really is a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. Can you imagine all the calls we'd be getting of the general nature, "My printer is spitting out a page and I haven't tried to print something at all!," that we'd be getting when it happened? And that would be even if the automatic print had in big, bold letters, "This page is printed automatically every 30 days to prevent ink from drying in the print head."

People just don't read, they panic.

 

[timeshifter]

There is no reason that the manufacturers of inkjet printers couldn't build in an automatic print once every 30 days, but the cynic in me tells me that is not in their best interest, so don't hold your breath.

Don't some inkjets do periodic maintenance on themselves to keep the ink flowing? Not print an actual page though. Seems to me that inkjets can use up ink doing maintenance even if you're not using them. Of course they need to be powered on, so if users power off their inkjets then all bets are off.

Laser or die!

 

[carmen617]

Don't some inkjets do periodic maintenance on themselves to keep the ink flowing? Not print an actual page though. Seems to me that inkjets can use up ink doing maintenance even if you're not using them. Of course they need to be powered on, so if users power off their inkjets then all bets are off.

Laser or die!

They definitely use up ink when you turn them on, doing a nozzle check. My latest printer advise is to ignore all requests to "update the firmware" unless there is actually something not working correctly with the printer. I've never known anybody to be hacked by ink, and god only knows what limitations the printer manufacturers are adding in firmware updates to screw up the potential use of third party cartridges.

 

[timeshifter]

My latest printer advise is to ignore all requests to "update the firmware"

Agreed. I think the only thing printer firmware updates really do is block 3rd party consumables.

 

[fincoder]

There is no reason that the manufacturers of inkjet printers couldn't build in an automatic print once every 30 days, but the cynic in me tells me that is not in their best interest, so don't hold your breath.

Don't some inkjets do periodic maintenance on themselves to keep the ink flowing? Not print an actual page though.

Yes. The Canon inkjet printers with 5 cartridges have ultra-fine print nozzles for better photo quality but they are more susceptible to blockage. Because of this these printers, if left powered on or sleeping, will periodically clean the print heads. An actual page of output isn't needed, but they do use up ink during these maintenance cycles. They use a full set of colour cartridges in approximately 1 year even if no colour is printed. It's also why these printers throw a 'waste ink reservoir full' error after a certain amount of ink is used, usually the printer is binned at that point (or the more wily users that google can find a secret button sequence to reset the condition

 

[HCHTech]

It's also why these printers throw a 'waste ink reservoir full' error after a certain amount of ink is used, usually the printer is binned at that point (or the more wily users that google can find a secret button sequence to reset the condition

This solves one problem and creates another, sadly. There is usually no easy way to clean the waste ink reservoir, so that's why they're binned. I spent an entire afternoon on one of these I was trying to "save" so it could be donated. It was a whole lot of wasted effort, and what a mess - despite gloves, I wore the mark of shame on my hands for a few weeks after that process - haha.

I'll also mention that the whole process of the auto-cleaning just slowly drains that very expensive ink. The goldilocks zone for these things is so narrow - I try to talk most clients out of them, frankly. Do you really need color? Do you print frequently? Do you know the real cost-per page? The only "solution" is to treat them as disposable right out of the gate. Use them until there is a problem, then replace them.

The ink chemists are walking a tightrope - I don't think there is a real solution --- other than just buying another technology altogether. Change my mind.

 

[britechguy]

It really is a "tool to task" and "tool to desires" thing.

For someone who prints very, very infrequently and does not need (or want) color, I'd only suggest a monochrome laser printer these days.

But for anyone who prints in color, and particularly if they want to be able to print photo-grade color photos, I'd only suggest one of the EcoTank (for Canon) or analogous types from one of the other major makers. These types of inkjet printers are as cheap, or quite possibly cheaper, to run than laser printers if you purchase third party ink "by the quart" (which is what I used to do, even for the ARC chip refillable tiny ink tanks) and it's just so simple, and quit tidy, to refill those large tanks using a funnel when doing so. If the person with such a printer does not print frequently, then I make sure they know that they need to print something that uses all colors at least once a month. I've never had anyone call me back about inkjet printer issues of the "not printing due to clogged print head" type that has followed that advice.

Before my latest printer, which is a color laser model, I would get many years of faithful service out of my inkjet printers because I printed fairly frequently overall. Now that I have one that's the "secondary" and used mostly for photo printing, I make a point of printing something in full color once per month.