How to avoid Epson ink clogs

[Mark Conrad]

Contemplating a 4 month vacation trip to a friends house, do not want to
come back to a clogged Epson 4800 Pro.

Thinking of several approaches:

1) Remove print head, feasible? Void my warranty?

2) Try to find 3rd party ink vendor who sells some sort of
ink 'flushing' scheme - - - but think this might be risky.

Offhand, any flushing solvent that might work would likely attack the
ink supply hoses.



3) Forget about it altogether and hope the ink head does not clog.


Just trying to avoid the cost of shipping that 100 pound printer back to
Epson to recover from any persistent ink clogs.

Heard bad stories about damage to big unwieldy printers during shipping.


Thanks for any suggestions,

Mark-

 

[Arthur Entlich]

Head removal is extreme and will certainly void your warranty and likely
not protect the heads from clogging, and put the printer out of alignment.

There are a few things you can do to help prevent clogging.

Firstly, if you are using Ultrachrome inks they are slow to clog.

You can add some water to the cleaning station just as you shut the
printer down. This will keep the heads more moist.


You can wrap your printer in a large plastic bag which you close, to
maintain humidity. You can even go as far as to set a sponge damped in
water OUTSIDE the printer in a small disk, but inside the same plastic
bag to keep humidity levels up.

You can remove the ink cartridges, purge the system, and then place
cleaning cartridge in to replace them and run a refilling. This is
quite ink costly, however, on the 4800 Pro.

Do NOT remove the cartridges and leave them out if you are not going
replace them with cleaning cartridges.

The 4800 Pro is less likely to develop clogs than some because of the
inks it uses, the bulk supply of ink, and the head and cleaning station
designs.


Art

 

[measekite]

Find a program that will print something on a schedule that will run
while you are away. Do not use any third party crap in that nice printer.

 

[Jan Alter]

Head removal is extreme and will certainly void your warranty and likely
not protect the heads from clogging, and put the printer out of alignment.

There are a few things you can do to help prevent clogging.

Firstly, if you are using Ultrachrome inks they are slow to clog.

You can add some water to the cleaning station just as you shut the
printer down. This will keep the heads more moist.


You can wrap your printer in a large plastic bag which you close, to
maintain humidity. You can even go as far as to set a sponge damped in
water OUTSIDE the printer in a small disk, but inside the same plastic bag
to keep humidity levels up.

You can remove the ink cartridges, purge the system, and then place
cleaning cartridge in to replace them and run a refilling. This is quite
ink costly, however, on the 4800 Pro.

Do NOT remove the cartridges and leave them out if you are not going
replace them with cleaning cartridges.

The 4800 Pro is less likely to develop clogs than some because of the inks
it uses, the bulk supply of ink, and the head and cleaning station
designs.


Art

Four months is quite a long time to leave any inkjet printer dorment,
much less an Epson, and expect it to not develop some sort of drying effect
in the head unless steps are taken. At my school we have over 80 Epson
inkjets and when we go on summer break for 10 weeks I have the teachers bag
the printers. So far its worked since starting this procedure since '99.
We've never lost a printer due to head clogging over the summer.
I used to have the teachers add a damp sponge into the bag as well, but
one teacher thought I meant to put it in the printer, and when she
complained to me in September that the printer made grinding noises when it
started I discovered the sponge lieing next to the print head leaning
against the head travel bar. The rust and corrosion were beyond repair.
The options that Art has suggested are mentioned from very knowlegeable
experience he has had with Epson printers, so one might consider using them
as a foundation to how to deal with your problem. Additionally, to those
thoughts (and I know this is a reach) you could hand the printer off to a
knowledgeable neighbor and ask him/her to print something on the printer
once every two weeks.

 

[Mark Conrad]

Contemplating a 4 month vacation trip to a friends house,
do not want to come back to a clogged Epson 4800 Pro.

Thanks guys for the excellent advice.

I am a little hesitant about jacking up the humidity of the entire
printer, in fact I go out of my way to keep the humidity very low, to
avoid any corrosion of electrical contacts etc.

Generally turn on a dehumidifier here when humidity gets above 50%.

In my experience, any relative humidity over 60% is asking for real
trouble as regards corrosion.


That leaves me with a few choices:

1) Tape a 'custom plastic baggy' around the print head, do not
know if this is feasible because I have not looked at
clearances around the print head.

2) Run an automatic schedule of printing once a week, printing
a 'simulated-black' page to exercise _all_ the ink holes
in the print head.


I would much prefer the custom fitted plastic bag taped around the print
head to keep the 'local' humidity there as high as possible in hopes of
avoiding clogs.

Makes me very nervous having anything on an automatic schedule, because
of several factors, not the least of which is lightning storms in this
mountain area.

My immediate (rural) neighbor had to spend thousands of dollars rewiring
his house; lightning found his buried phone line about 200 feet away
from his house, followed the phone line into his house, melted all his
house wiring, zapped the wiring of the pump in his water well, etc.

Phone company people buried his phone lines one foot deeper, in hopes of
avoiding any future damage.


Anyhow, the advice here stopped me dead in my tracks as regards removing
the print head from the printer, that would have resulted in a real
disaster.

Mark-

 

[John McWilliams]

<< Snipped bits out >>

Here's an entirely different tack: Find a neighbor and or friend to
"loan" it to, condition being they will print something once a week.

Far safer, cheaper than anything else.

 

[Arthur Entlich]

You can wrap your printer in a large plastic bag which you close, to

maintain humidity. You can even go as far as to set a sponge damped in
water OUTSIDE the printer in a small disk, but inside the same plastic
bag to keep humidity levels up.

Just want to make some typo corrections from the above:

You can wrap your printer in a large plastic bag which you close, to
maintain humidity. You can even go as far as to set a sponge dampened
in water OUTSIDE the printer in a small dish, but inside the same
plastic bag to keep humidity levels up.

As Jan stated, do NOT place the damp sponge within the printer where it
can contact or be near any metal parts which can rust.


Art

 

[Arthur Entlich]

You could always take your printer along with you ;-)

You can just bag it without adding any humidity source. I doubt the
humidity level will get very extreme from the minimal evaporation of the
inks while it is sealed.

I would be quite careful trying to wrap the head alone. It could be
done, just be gentle.

Epson uses glycerol or glycols in the heads when they are stored coming
out of the factory. Adding a bit of extra fluid in the cleaning station
shouldn't damage the heads.

Art

 

[Arthur Entlich]

I think you have the beginnings of a new job description. You know
those dog walkers and kennels they have for pets, well how about Epson
printer kennels or printer exercisers who will come to you rather than
you going to them ;-) Printer sitting?

We will printer sit for you, at your place or ours. We can offer it as
part of our house-sitting and pet sitting services...

;-)

Art

 

[Jan Alter]

You could always take your printer along with you ;-)

You can just bag it without adding any humidity source. I doubt the
humidity level will get very extreme from the minimal evaporation of the
inks while it is sealed.

I would be quite careful trying to wrap the head alone. It could be done,
just be gentle.

Epson uses glycerol or glycols in the heads when they are stored coming
out of the factory. Adding a bit of extra fluid in the cleaning station
shouldn't damage the heads.

Art

I'd bet for another $20 Epson could build a timer control into their
printers to turn yjem on once a week and print a nozzle check pattern.
However, if they couldn't manage that I'm sure they could train OEM print
sitters certified by Epson to turn the printer on and print a page at
regular visits. I would never use an aftermarket print sitter. Who knows
what other printers they may have been sitting.

Jan Alter
(e-mail address removed)
(e-mail address removed)12.pa.us

 

[Mark Conrad]

You can just bag it without adding any humidity source.
I doubt the humidity level will get very extreme from the
minimal evaporation of the inks while it is sealed.

I would be quite careful trying to wrap the head alone.
It could be done, just be gentle.

Yes, that seems to be the most practical way to solve the problem.

Epson uses glycerol or glycols in the heads when they are
stored coming out of the factory. Adding a bit of extra
fluid in the cleaning station shouldn't damage the heads.

Thanks, I will check with Epson to make certain it is safe.



BTW, I gather you run the big Epson printers. If so, did you ever need
to ship them back to Epson for maintenance under warrantee?

I imagine that would be a gigantic hassle, given the size and weight of
those big Epson printers, plus the likelihood of damaging them during
shipping.

Mark-

 

[Mark Conrad]

I think you have the beginnings of a new job description. You know
those dog walkers and kennels they have for pets, well how about Epson
printer kennels or printer exercisers who will come to you rather than
you going to them ;-) Printer sitting?

We will printer sit for you, at your place or ours. We can offer it as
part of our house-sitting and pet sitting services...

;-)

Why do I have visions of some New Yorker running ten 100-pound Epsons on
leashes down sidewalks, in order to 'exercise' them.

Y'know, I bought that large printer stand on wheels that epson sells as
an accessory for their 4800 printer model, because I came close to
breaking my back lugging that 90 pound printer around inside my house.

Wonder if I can mount a small motor inside that printer stand, then
train the Epson to follow me.

Mark-

 

[ilovefrankhobbicolor]

I have a laser and it never clogs.


loving laser....