Cleaning Epson print heads

Does anyone know a way to clean Epson print heads?

Unlike HP and other printers the print head isn't part of the cartridge, but rather the printer itself, so it isn't replaced with each cartridge replacement.

I've got an Epson Photo EX A3 printer I've been using for many years and until recently it has worked perfectly.

I've always used genuine Epson ink to avoid clogging, fading and to get the best print quality. However when I got married I had to print our Order of Service, totalling 70 copies, and about 1400 pages printed in total!

As you can imagine that is a lot of ink, and I ran out of the genuine cartridges I had, and because of time limits the only ones I could get to finish the printing were third party cheap ones. They seemed to work OK at the time and got the job done. However since then I have had issues getting the printer to print, and have needed to keep cleaning the printheads every few copies because of gaps and lines in the printing. So I won't be using third party ink again any time soon.

However, now I'm not getting anything from the black cartridges. The colour is printing correctly, but I'm not getting anything at all from the black cartridge. I just replaced it with a new Epson cartridge but still nothing. Any ideas?

it's an Epson, the best and cheapest option is to bin it and buy a new printer

Do you have something against Epsons?

New A3 Epsons cost close to £400 so I want to get this working if I can, rather than spend a lot of money I might not need to.

I've found a guide on how to unclog Epson Print heads here, so I will try that when I get time.

I used to have an Epson 830u and had special ehad cleaning cartridges that I put in and then used the Epson maintainence util to clean the heads while they were in, this usually unclogged any crap out of the head. Im not sure if they do them for your model but you could try an ink cartridge shop and ask if they do them :)

A few drops of car anti-freeze works wonders if you put some into an old cartridge, put it in the printer and leave it overnight. Make a hole in the top of an old black cartridge and put about 10 to 15 drops in to dampen the sponge inside. It will gradually percolate through the print heads and soften the dried ink.

This works on Epson and older Canon printers as the ink is water based; do NOT try this with an HP printer as the ink is pigment based.

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Originally Posted by Tajmaster

I used to have an Epson 830u and had special ehad cleaning cartridges that I put in and then used the Epson maintainence util to clean the heads while they were in, this usually unclogged any crap out of the head. Im not sure if they do them for your model but you could try an ink cartridge shop and ask if they do them :)

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I've been using the Maintenance utilities (SSC Service Utility) and that hasn't had any effect, even using the powerful cleaning option. And the Epson cleaning cartridges are quite expansive, and might not do much as I'm not getting any ink through to the paper.

It seems quite straight forward to dismantle the printer and get to the print head, so I think I will give that a go.

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Originally Posted by Harrison

It seems quite straight forward to dismantle the printer and get to the print head, so I think I will give that a go.

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Famous last words, usually followed by *ping!* and "Where did that little tiny spring go? D'oh!!"

Yes, I've learnt that lesson the hard way in the past :lol: Worst was taking apart a top of the range personal stereo years ago because the mechanism had completely jammed. Put it all back together and then found a bit left over that was needed to make the auto reverse work, but the spring it connected to was missing. Oops.

These days I now make sure I have a completely clean desk and lay everything out as I take it apart, and put screws in a pot.

If it's an involved job like a laptop strip down, I use small ziplock bags to put the screws and small parts in and write on each one where they came from. A notepad to write down important bits, like where wires and headers attach is vital as well.

Unless you do something like this, you are heading for disaster...

Or take photos of everything connected as you go, so you can reference it when putting it all back together.