Cleaning print heads

[swimwivsquid]

Because I didn't have any other option I freed the heads on my D88 with a Rotech cleaning solution. Took out the cartridges and cut 2 drinking straws in half and put one half on each of the heads then with a syringe put a little of the cleaning solution into each straw and left the printer overnight,Next day I put the syringe over the head and pulled any surplus back into the syringe. Put the cartridges back and hey presto after a head clean it worked. My problem was due to under use of the printer. It had been in storage for a year. You get like this when you are on an island with few resources!.....

[swimwivsquid]

Cheers for that, good post Maybe I can practice at taking this one apart seeing as it's going in the bin anyway! LOL

That's kind of why I took mine apart. I had replaced it with a 1290S and decided to take the 1290 apart to learn a bit more about what goes on - with a vague hope of possibly getting it working again (that didn't happen! ).

It's quite an eye-opener to see how big these waste sponges were. People say it's safe to reset the waste counter once before having to replace the sponges and my 1290 confirmed that. The ink had soaked through from the two key areas to the lower sponge and was probably about a third to a half saturated. Now, an A4 printer will have smaller sponges and I don't know if the counter limit is reduced accordingly but, if it is, then the same would apply.

However, as I say, the ink had not dried. There was no indication of ink having dried in the entire life of the printer (although I'm sure some must have). The point being is that, if the sponges do get fully saturated then any additional waste ink will just float on top. It'll eventually pile up and overflow - probably getting into the electronics but certainly flowing out onto your nice new carpet.

In either case, it's worth knowing that the waste sponges are not a bottomless pit.

I modified mine by getting at the waste tube , extending it with some more tubing and then putting the end in an old ink tub so now the ink goes out of the printer completely.

[Justin]

I think JSR has hit the nail on the head. I had been using this printer everyday up until the magenta stopped working. I can't possibly see how it's dried up so the air blockage makes much more sense.

[JSR]

Because I didn't have any other option I freed the heads on my D88 with a Rotech cleaning solution. Took out the cartridges and cut 2 drinking straws in half and put one half on each of the heads then with a syringe put a little of the cleaning solution into each straw and left the printer overnight,Next day I put the syringe over the head and pulled any surplus back into the syringe. Put the cartridges back and hey presto after a head clean it worked. My problem was due to under use of the printer. It had been in storage for a year. You get like this when you are on an island with few resources!.....

The "leaving it standing overnight" is probably what saved it.

On the occasions that I've not had a good nozzle check pattern (most recently with my last 1290S that's been standing idle for a year), I've put fresh ink in, run the head clean a couple of times, then left it standing for several hours.

What tends to happen is that any trapped air rises up through the ink after the head clean - this takes quite some time. It can't do that if there's no ink there (it has no way of creating its own vacuum). In my case, the 1290S came back to life - as posted here: http://dyesubforum.co.uk/printers-f3/the-workhorse-lives-t258.htm

Despite my printer not having printed in a whole year and the ink not being changed in that time, nothing "dried" on the printhead - so no "magic solution" was required to shift it.

[JSR]

I modified mine by getting at the waste tube , extending it with some more tubing and then putting the end in an old ink tub so now the ink goes out of the printer completely.

I keep meaning to do that but I've not found the right kind of tubing. Added to that I'd probably make a complete hash of it and ruin my printer...