It could be time to clean the printer heads if your inkjet printer is giving you trouble with poor print quality. The ink cartridges are held in place by the printer heads, which also spray ink onto the paper during printing. You might not, however, receive prints from your printer as expected when they become blocked.
When there is no ink flowing from the printhead, a warning usually appears on the printer's screen. Even when your ink cartridges are full, it may be necessary to clean the printer heads if you have fading printing or even a blank page.
Some printers allow you to use your computer to initiate a cleaning cycle. Some printers feature a dedicated button for cleaning the heads. While the majority of them demand manual printhead cleaning. In this post, we'll go through each technique in detail.
When Should Printer Heads Be Cleaned?
You should first determine whether you actually need to clean the printheads before you begin. You will end up spending more money trying to clean it unnecessarily because cleaning uses more ink from your ink cartridge.
When, you should begin cleaning the printhead
The grade of prints is slipping
If you have a colour printer, you may experience problems printing all the colours since the entire page is hazy or indistinct.
The print is missing certain text.
Why Does a Printer Head Clog?
Understanding why the printhead becomes clogged in the first place is crucial before continuing with the printer head cleaning procedure. If you can avoid the harmful substances, you can avoid spending money on printhead cleaning.
Here are a few of them:
Long-Term Inactivity: When your printer is not printing for an extended length of time, printheads typically become blocked. The natural flow of ink is hampered as the ink dries. Poor printing results from the ink's uneven passage across your paper.
Air bubbles: If you just replaced your cartridge, poor cartridge placement may cause bubbles that will obstruct printing. Air bubbles can also emerge when ink is changed.
Other Objects: Your printer's interior components may become contaminated with dust, dirt, or foreign objects like insects. It may clog printheads if it gets there, which will reduce the quality of your prints.
How Are Printer Heads Cleaned?
Let's look at how to successfully clean the printheads once you determine whether you truly need to do so. The manufacturer offers a number of ways to clean the printheads, depending on the kind of printer you are using. Let's examine a few of them in more depth.
Utilizing the printing preferences feature
You may utilise Windows' built-in printhead cleaning capability if you possess printers from the Epson L110 series or Canon MP280 series. There is no need to open the casing of your printer to clean it.
For clarity, we have utilised the Epson L110 series printer. If your printer has the function, you may also check the instructions on your printer as they are identical.
On your keyboard, press the Windows key and R.
When typing control, hit Enter.
Select the Hardware and Sound tab.
Click Devices and Printers after that.
Right-click the printer whose printhead you wish to clean under the Printers sub-menu. In my situation, I'll right-click on the printer from the EPSON L110 Series.
The context menu option to select is Printing Preferences.
Open the Maintenance tab in the Printing Preferences window.
Select the Head Cleaning tab by clicking.
Click the Start button in the following pop-up box.
Wait till the head cleaning is finished.
After cleaning the head, you may check to see if the printer is functioning properly. To print the nozzle check pattern, click the button.
A sample pattern will be printed on a page for you. You may check to see if the printhead is functioning correctly after investigating. If not, try once more cleaning the head. However, avoid doing it frequently as it uses up ink.
Using Your Printer's Buttons
There are special buttons on the button panel of several Epson printers, including the Epson L310 series and L3200 series, that may be used for nozzle checking and head cleaning.
To clean the printer head, according to the methods listed below. For the sake of this demonstration, we used an Epson L380 printer.
Turn on the printer.
For a few seconds, keep pushing the Cancel button on your button panel until the power button light begins to flicker.
The washing of the head will begin. The process typically takes 5 to 10 minutes to finish.
When cleaning is finished, the power button light will continue to shine. Then, you may use your printer as usual.
Cleaning the Printer Heads by Hand
You must do manual cleaning if starting the printhead cleaning cycle using Windows settings or buttons does not function. Additionally, if your printer lacks those functions, your only choice is to manually clean the printhead.
The methods to remove the printheads from your printer's casing may vary depending on where they are located on your printer. The same procedure may be used for cleaning, though.
You need a use-and-throw glove, a plastic container, a piece of microfiber cloth, some paper towels, and distilled hot water before you can begin cleaning.
For the purposes of example, we have used the Brother DCP-J125 model printer as a reference.
Insert a paper towel into the use-and-throw container. Make careful to fold the paper towel such that it is 0.25 inches thick or less.
Pour hot distilled water from a bottle into the container. For appropriate paper towel insertion, the water should be at least 2-3 inches deep.
It's time to remove every ink cartridge from your printer right now. To do so, remove all the screws from the cabinet containing the printer's internals.
The inside of a Brother DCP-J125 printer looks like this:
Currently, there are two ways to remove the cartridge:
Each cartridge's lock should be depressed.
To release the locks and take them off, gently press the cartridge itself.
Before removing them, please keep in mind the sequence in which they were put.
Take another piece of paper towel and set the cartridges over it after you've taken the cartridges out. To prevent spills, turn the ink outlets so that you are facing them.
The printhead should then be taken out of the printer at this point.
Take the printhead off of the printer by gently unlocking the clasp that keeps it in place.
Take a microfiber cloth and lightly dampen it with distilled hot water in the meanwhile.
To clean the excess ink in the nozzle, take the printhead and gently wipe it over the moist towel.
After that, take the prepared container and insert the printhead into it with the nozzle pointing downward.
Keep it submerged for around ten minutes. The extra ink in the container will be completely absorbed by the paper towel, as you can see.
Place the printhead in another dry piece of paper towel after removing it from the container. However, you must now turn the nozzle upward. Give it about 15 minutes to dry.
You must allow your printer head to dry for a few more days if it contains an integrated circuit board. If you install the printhead before it has completely dried, you risk harming it.
Reinstalling the printhead in the printhead holder is necessary once you have completed cleaning and drying it.
Use the clasp you previously pushed up to lock the printhead in the holder after placing it there.
Put each cartridge in its corresponding slot. Gently push them until you hear a click.
Your printer's access door should be closed.
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