get the ink moving

July 17, 2005 7:02 AM

I have an Epson CX5200 multipurpose printer. It needed ink cartridges, so it sat idle for a while. Now I need to use it and the color of the ink catridge that I replaced (yellow) is only appearing in thin bands.
I've tried cleaning the jets, printing page after page of a 75% Y block from Illustrator and so far no change. Anyone have any fantastic tips?
posted by Mayor Curley to Computers & Internet (7 answers total)

If the Y print head is clogged, make a solution of 50% vinegar, 50% water. Put about one eighth of an inch of this in an old cup or saucer. Set the cartridge's print head down in the liquid, and leave it there for as long as fifteen minutes. This might help unclog the print head.
posted by Rothko at 8:25 AM on July 17, 2005

Unfortunately you can't do rothko's method, as the print heads are part of the printer instead of the cartridges on Epsons.

I've seen special head flush cartridges for sale, and I've seen articles saying to douse the pads the heads sit on with Windex (a dilution of ammonia would probably work too) and let them sit for fifteen minutes. This article runs through some cleaning methods, including the Windex one.
posted by zsazsa at 8:59 AM on July 17, 2005

I had an older Epson inket printer (actually 4 of them because they kept replacing them under warranty) that did the same thing. As pointed out, the printhead is part of the printer, not the cartridge. A good idea in theory since the cartridges are (supposedly) a lot cheaper, but in reality it doesn't work all that well as you've seen. That's why I won't ever buy another Epson printer. Coming from someone who used to be a tech in a previous age who has worked on pretty much all brands of printers, now I buy nothing but HP.
posted by AstroGuy at 12:52 PM on July 17, 2005

Mayor:
How many times did you clean the print heads? I've used an old epson that had been collecting dust for years, and it took many cleans for the heads to work properly again.


AstroGuy:

I read a few days ago that HP was taking the major move of shifting their print heads off the cartridges to the printer. I guess I might have misread the article, but I thought that's what it said. I've always bought epson, largely because at the time of my first photo printer purchase (about 6 years ago), and the next one a few years later, HP printers were much faster, but the print quality was crap compared to the Epson photo printers, and quality was a bigger issue for me than spending half an hour waiting for a print job to finish. Maybe I should check if anything has changed... or look into the new dye sublimation printers :-)
posted by -harlequin- at 3:27 PM on July 17, 2005

(Actually, I guess a higher veritical DPI will require a lot more side-to side passes on an inkjet, so quicker print time basically means lower print resolution between machines with contemporary print-heads)
posted by -harlequin- at 3:31 PM on July 17, 2005

harlequin: I hadn't heard that news about HP. If true that's a shame. Next they'll be separating the drum from the toner on their laser printers. That's what I've always liked about HP--replace the consumables and your replace basically the entire imaging system in their inkjets and lasers. And as far as the inkets go, I was really only referring to lower-end consumer stuff, not higher end photo stuff. I have a couple of Laserjets myself (an older LJ4000 and a fairly new LJ3030 multifunction unit) and I've got a couple year-old cheapie Deskjet 940c that does OK color and photos when I need it. I've tried Epson, Brother, and Panasonic printers and had nothing but trouble with them but my HPs keep on working.
posted by AstroGuy at 3:38 PM on July 17, 2005

Many people report similar problems with that printer. See this discussion. I would call Epson tech support and have them replace it if I were you.
posted by blueyellow at 6:11 AM on July 18, 2005