Caring for Inkjet Printers

This and other articles about website design, avoiding online fraud and computer-related issues, was written by Yisroel Goodman of http://www.ccs-digital.com Note: This applies particularly to Epson printers. Some HP printers contain the heads in the print cartridge so replacing the cartridge also replaces the heads. Does that make HP "better" than Epson? Yes and no. You can find Epson-compatible cartridges for $3. I don't believe you can find HP-compatible cartridges for much under $10. If you pay $5-$7 more per cartridge, it won't be long before you could have bought a whole new printer for the difference. So yes, the HP system of putting the heads in the cartridge may provide more insurance against a head clog but you may be paying too much for it. 1) Don't let any color run out of ink Ink is a lubricant for the print heads. Some color ink is used even if you only print in black or vice versa. If you printed with a color missing, you could destroy that print head from the friction of running without ink to lubricate it. That's why most printers won't allow you to print with a color missing even if you aren't using it. If you allow a color to go empty, the residual ink in the head could clog and become permanently blocked. You would never be able to print that color again. So always replace ink cartridges as soon as they are empty. Do not use tricks like chip resetters to fool the printer into thinking a cartridge has ink when it is empty. 2) Always leave the printer on Leaving your printer on takes very little power. Every so often the printer sends a signal to cycle the ink in the heads so it doesn't clog. If you turn your printer off, the next time you turn it on it will do a cleaning which wastes a lot of ink. Considering that some companies give you only 3-7 ml of ink to begin with, you don't want to waste 2-3 ml on a cleaning. The excess ink is soaked up by the waste pad beneath the printer. When the waste pad is full, the printer stops working. It will cost more than a new printer to repair it. Shutting off an inkjet between uses can actually shorten its life and will definitely use up the ink faster. If you ignore tip #2 at least know the following 3) Never shut off an inkjet through a power strip When you shut down a printer by pressing its power button, it goes through a shut down routine designed to clear the ink from the heads. If you use a power strip, it won't go through this routine. This can damage the heads. 4) Never turn off a printer for extended periods If you leave the printer off for extended periods of time, the ink in the heads will clog and you will have to throw the printer away. Someone I know with a Canon (though this can happen with any inkjet) had to have the heads replaced twice within the first few months before the Canon tech told her to stop turning it off. Since then it has worked perfectly for over a year. Warning about running out of ink with Epson printers I don't know if this applies to other brands of printers but I know it applies to Epson. If you let the printer run out of ink, air will get into the jets and the residual ink remaining will coagulate. Air in the tiny tubes can also break the vacuum effect needed to continue pulling into to the head. This may permanently prevent those heads from ever printing again. To prevent this from happening, Epson printers report that the cartridge is out of ink when there is still some left - in order to force you to replace the ink before it runs out. However, the printer doesn't know exactly how much ink is really left. It estimates. This means that things can go wrong and it is possible for you to be printing with an empty cartridge. What can go wrong?1) You print a lot of photos or pages requiring heavy ink use. The printer estimates the ink remaining based on the number of pages printed and average coverage per page. 2) You remove and re-insert a cartridge. The printer might be fooled into thinking it is a new cartridge and reset the counter to full. The ink will get used faster than the printer anticipates.

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