Epson Printer Head blocked

Dave Canon

Dave Canon

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I have had my Epson SC P600 printer for nearly 5 years now. During periods of inactivity, I regularly ran a Nozzle check to ensure no blocks. I particularly did this at times of low humidity. Other times I left it as long as 2 months with no problems. During August it was very dry so I should have run nozzle checks or even printed something, but we had two one-week visits from my Granddaughter followed by my son's wedding which distracted me so last week I actually needed some prints. I started by a Nozzle check and found all 8 heads were blocked. After a series of cleans a few recovered so I went further and cleaned the heads by sliding the heads over a coffee filter then even let it soak using head cleaning fluid. Two heads are still blocked. I repeated this today and no difference. Can anyone make a practical suggestion (other than you should have bought a different brand). I cannot really manage without a high-quality photo printer. While a good commercial printer can match for colour prints though they have very limited paper choice, I have yet to see B&W commercial prints to match this type of multiple black ink printer.

Dave
 
Are you leaving the head in contact with a paper towel soaked in cleaning agent (eg Magic Bullet) for long enough?
I have had a similar experience with a P600, and an overnight soak fixed it for me.

I now print a small image of a colour checker card, on plain paper, every couple of weeks, followed by a nozzle check - no problem since I’ve adopted this routine. I assume the colour checker image ensures all inks are used.
 
Magic bullet. Soak a bit of kitchen cloth (the blue and white stuff). Cut a strip a couple of inches wide and twice the length of the head. Fold it in half and then in half again so you end up with an inch wide x the length of the head.

Turn the print off and let the head park, then turn it on and as soon as the head moves away from the dock, unplug it.

Now soak your cloth in magic bullet and lay it on print deck. Carefully slide the head over the cloth, close the lid and leave it for 24 hours.

I had a bad blockage too after the summer as the printer is in the loft and it gets damn hot up there. Had to repeat the above twice with a head clean in between.
 
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Thanks, I had tried cleaning with an equivalent to Magic Bullet; I have got some MB somewhere but cannot find it. The solvent I have bought as a head cleaner recommended leaving over solvent for 45 mins to 60 mins which I have done twice. In view of above advice, I will use an overnight soak tonight and hope this works. Having just checked how much the printer cost, my wife is certainly not keen on my replacing it.

Dave
 
After the overnight soak I have now gone from 6 heads clear to 7 but stubbornly one is still blocked. I might have to take disassemble the printhead which is not trivial but cannot think what else I can do. Anyway, all this cleaning is wasting lots of ink which will keep Epson happy.

Dave
 
I looked at the Magicbullet website and it shows injecting the fluid into the ink ports with a syringe.
Also said do not run multiple cleans as this in fact makes it worse, as even more ink dries out and wastes ink.
 
tijuana taxi said:
I looked at the Magicbullet website and it shows injecting the fluid into the ink ports with a syringe.
Also said do not run multiple cleans as this in fact makes it worse, as even more ink dries out and wastes ink.
Click to expand...

You can't really do that with the P600 because there is no way to re-prime the lines with ink afterwards and the ink doesn't actually dry or clog up inside the head.

Clogging is usually caused by the paper fibres and dust absorbing the ink and then sticking to the outside of the nozzles.
 
ecoleman said:
You can't really do that with the P600 because there is no way to re-prime the lines with ink afterwards and the ink doesn't actually dry or clog up inside the head.

Clogging is usually caused by the paper fibres and dust absorbing the ink and then sticking to the outside of the nozzles.
Click to expand...
I see, didn't know that and I've never owned an Epsom printer.
Only expensive printer I have owned was the Canon Pixma Pro 10 where it would have been possible.
 
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ecoleman said:
Probably, as Canon use a dye based ink whereas Epson use Pigment inks.
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This is surely too much of a generalisation ~ as in both brands have both Dye and Pigment ink using printers in their ranges ;)
 
Box Brownie said:
This is surely too much of a generalisation ~ as in both brands have both Dye and Pigment ink using printers in their ranges ;)
Click to expand...
Sure, if you want to include all the consumer grade printers available at Currys.

The fact is that pretty much all pro Epson printers are pigment and most pro Canon printers are dye.
 
The SC P600 used pigment inks. As the only head still blocked is LLK, I decided that this is unlikely to play much part in a colour print so produced a colour print today which looks good as expected. I will give the heads another soaking tonight. Many years ago, I owned a Canon Photo printer; early days and the print quality could not match a darkroom print. However, when jets were blocked, you could instruct it to deep clean the specific problem head so wasting less ink.

Dave
 
Tried another Nozzle test today and similar result but the paper became jammed under the head and produced in error message. The instructions told me to power off then on then run a head clean. I did this followed by another Nozzle check and all 8 Nozzles were now working though not perfect, so I printed an A3 colour and a B&W print. Both were fine. I then noticed that some inks were now low (hardly surprising given how much has been wasted in the head cleaning. So, I have ordered 4 new ink cartridges at a cost of £85!!!!

Dave
 
The joys of home printing!!!

Even given the cost, I prefer to print at home because of the extra control it gives over lab printing as well as the time it saves.
 
Dave Canon said:
Tried another Nozzle test today and similar result but the paper became jammed under the head and produced in error message. The instructions told me to power off then on then run a head clean. I did this followed by another Nozzle check and all 8 Nozzles were now working though not perfect, so I printed an A3 colour and a B&W print. Both were fine. I then noticed that some inks were now low (hardly surprising given how much has been wasted in the head cleaning. So, I have ordered 4 new ink cartridges at a cost of £85!!!!

Dave
Click to expand...

Switch to Marrutt inks. Much cheaper than Epson and no difference in quality.
 
ecoleman said:
Probably, as Canon use a dye based ink whereas Epson use Pigment inks.
Click to expand...
Most canons use both. Or a choice.
Most canons have easily removable heads for cleaning without the use of tools.
Epson heads are not user friendly serviceable.

The suggestion to use soak pads is the best, and continue as long as it takes, which could be several days.
You could have them professionally serviced.
 
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After having printed a couple of colour and mono prints, I decided to print another mono but on Matte paper. I normally only use the PhotoBlack PK even when printing Matte as changing to MK is a pain. I had set my printer to NOT auto change but it ignored this this time and changed to MK. In the P600 (and P800, I think), it only has one black ink jet so pumps the MK ink though for a while to clear out the PK. I was quite annoyed and forced it back to PK which resulted in lots more ink being wasted. What was worse this also resulted in the Black head being blocked again. After several cleans (and lots more wasted ink), I cleared it and printed the mono print. I was forced to go back to lustre paper to make sure. During my investigations on-line, I discovered that if the printer auto changes and either PK or MK is into a low ink warning the printer locks up and the only way to ever use it again is to send it back to Epson. If I had known this, I would never have bought Epson. I will struggle on and once the printer finally dies on me will have to look at Canon again.

Dave
 
Heads are blocked again but have not been able to clear them this time so will used Commercial printing for now an then consider a replacement printer. Interestingly, during the cleaning process one of the inks ran low and needed replacing. I did so and the printer has rejected the new cartridge which is a genuine Epsom (or that is what I paid for and what it says on the package). Could it be a fake, if so, I want a refund from Amazon.

Dave
 
I see Magic Bullet is now unobtainable... nothing on Amazon or ebay or the link above. Any other recommendations for a 3880?
 
Nod said:
The joys of home printing!!!

Even given the cost, I prefer to print at home because of the extra control it gives over lab printing as well as the time it saves.
Click to expand...
I print at home because I'm frugal! I have finally given up on after market ink and do use them now. Getting photo's I like and instead of $18 a cartridge they are $5 a cartridge and delivered to my PO box. Also there was no place in central Oregon I could find the ink I need. If there was, the closest place I would think I could get it is in Madras, 65 miles round trip and gas over $4 a gal! You'd think better chance in Bend but tried that and not there, 140mi round trip! Even my photo paper comes through the mail! Photo's I print at home might be on less expensive paper but I've got photo's in good shape I printed over 20 yrs ago! And probably the best reason for doing it myself is I like doing it!
 
Tried the Magic bullet - however the blurb says it is not suitable for the 3880 but I tried the method shown in various tutorials. Problematic nozzle (Magenta) looks to be bothersome still but the others look cleaner... Engineer did say one of the nozzle looked a bit worse for wear so once we have some replacement LK and LLK cartridges I will give the printer a go, if colours are off then a) use this as a mono printer and b) go to DSCL for colour prints...
 
I've been using an Epson 4800 pro for a few years, it does suffer from blocked nozzles, especially if left for awhile. The one thing I do is to get some Nilglass, and spray a thin pad of strong kitchen tissue. Lay this on the head track and move the head over so it sits above the pad. Leave overnight. Following day I set the printer to SSCL.

The sonic clean does a really good job, and is less wasteful. I then run a print test through to see if there are any blockages. This usually clears the blocked nozzles. The other thing to do is to set up an a4 test image. You can then use automator to run a daily script to print one sheet of A4 with the test image. Especially good if your away from the printer for a few days holidays etc. If the blockage is really stubborn you can just place the Nilglass coated swab under the head again.
 
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