Pablo8 Loc: Nottingham UK.

My Epson R3000 printer with re-fillable cartridges, stopped printing with Photo-Black, and Yellow inks. Simple Head -Clean routines did not improve matters. So I removed the two cartridges, flushed the lines of plastic tubes that carried the ink from the Cartridges, to the Print heads, with 'Magic Bullet'. Then injected the relevant inks into the plastic tubes. Strips of 'J' cloth were laid under the print head to soak up the liquids, as they were ejected. clean J-cloth soaked strips were left in situ under the print head overnight. These were then removed, and Head-clean and Nozzle check printout was performed. The results (Before and After),are shown below. All colours fully operational once again. I think a combination of air locks in the plastic tubes, and dried ink at the heads were the causes of the problem.

47greyfox Loc: on the edge of the Colorado front range

Impressive results! Based on my albeit limited and frustrating efforts with dry, clogged heads, I applaud your outcome. A new printer is my usual final solution.

uhaas2009

Wow, incredible. I tried it on a canon printer, the result was not useable. To get a new head was the same $ as a new printer..... I’m sure a video about it you could have lots of followers...😃

Pablo8 Loc: Nottingham UK.

Try Ebay / Google to purchase 'Magic Bullet'. I almost gave up with Head cleans, Purging single colours. But persevere ...I did.

47greyfox Loc: on the edge of the Colorado front range

Thanks. Do you know what the solution is?

Pablo8 Loc: Nottingham UK.

Sorry, No.

fotobyferg

dpullum Loc: Tampa Florida

I believe that isopropanol [good old rubbing alcohol ] 95% will work, check it out on some of your ink to make sure that it gives a clear-not cloudy solution. This and a hypodermic syringe were handy when I owned my Epson. That Epson lasted well past 5 years and the tank system saved $1000s vs OEM.

My Epson died with a message saying key components "outlived ..." some faithful message. Later I found out that the waste ink sponge was the problem. I trashed the printer because it was a "Technical Factory Repair Item" ... had I known, I would have flushed the sponge and problem over. Skeptic that I am, I think that some items have timed deaths built-in. I replace it with a canon 9000 which was dirt cheap because the 9100 came out... trivial change. Always 3 party inks, no problem, no pluggage.

For many things, I use my Xerox Color Printer, surprisingly, from 6' away mounted on the wall they look great. Carts for that full set for about $30; they last long. Paper makes a big difference; I use Hammermill Color Gloss.

gvarner Loc: Central Oregon Coast

To avoid dry heads you could implement a routine photo print in draft mode. It uses much less ink than the head cleaning routine.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Nice result. I was surprised to learn that printers store overflow ink. I'm sure that's not the proper term, but there are absorbent pads in there that absorb ink. I cleaned about a dozen pads inside a Canon iP4500, and they probably held half a pint of ink. I washed and dried them and put them back in. As you can imagine, it's an extremely dirty job requiring old clothes, a workshop-type area, lots of newspaper, and latex/nitrile gloves. You can find videos on YouTube if you want to do this. Be aware that you have to disassemble the printer.

Pablo8 Loc: Nottingham UK.

There are products available to divert the ink into a small container rather than have it soak into sponge pads. The container rests outside of the printer, and can easily be disconnected, emptied, rinsed out, and reconnected to the drain-off tube. Job done, and no mess to contend with. Glad I bought mine.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Great idea!

Johnnyt Loc: keizer Oregon

I had pretty much the same problem with my Epson wf 3620 printer. I had some ink cartridges refilled and they didn’t work. I bought new ones. I left the cartridges out of the printer and the ink lines in the head dried up. The fittings that went into the cartridges were plugged up. I ended up dabbing water on the fittings and using a brush to clean them and wetting them down and injecting water through the lines. Then I put the cartridges in, ran the cleaning and setup and calibration program and everything was ok. That was a mess! But it works!
I also emptied out the ink catcher tank. It was easy and quick!

Pablo8 Loc: Nottingham UK.

There might be a rush on J-Cloths, better stock-up now. You know how things can escalate LOL.