h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

... without using the utility provided.

I have an Epson Photo 870. It stood unused for some time and the black printer head got clogged. I've been using the 'Head Cleaner' utility to try to get it clean, but that uses ink. I've already had to replace the colour cartridge, which annoys me as I'd hardly used it.

Can anybody suggest a way to clean the printer head *without* using the utility?

Unlike other inkjet printers, Epson's have the print heads in the printer themselves rather than in the cartridge, hence the problem. You may need to get some inkjet head cleaning cartridges to flush out the print heads. For the Epson Photo 870, a pair of catridges (colour and black flush) will probably set you back between £15 and £20.

I have an Epson stylus DX3800 and it prints like shit most of the time. It's one of those all-in-one (printer, photocopier, scanner) thingys and I am really not happy with how it prints.

I clean the heads whenever I need a clean copy of something, but even then it doesn't usually work well.

And I've never understood why cleaning the heads 'uses ink'. Why?


az

Thanks for the tip. I did a bit of searching and I can get a pair of Epson compatible cleaner cartridges for a whole lot less than £20. Being permanently short of cash, I have a tendency to go for 'compatibles' rather than the genuine articles.

Traveller in Time buying a printer every other year
"Cleaning the heads comes down at using all the nozzles with big drops. Normal use utilises only two out of three nozzles.

If you do not use the printer tiny residu of the ink will dry out inside the head, cleaning involves a high volume of ink beeing forced out taking some of the residu with it. "

And I don't suppose the cat hair helps...

How often do printers need to be used to avoid the nozzles blocking up?

az

i used to work for a company whose engineers used to travel all over the country fixing pc hardware.

seemed a good fix for printers was that canned pressurised air, or wd 40 normally either way with the ink carts removed