Epson Printers ...

We've been running a half dozen newer Epsons (R300's, R800's etc) and haven't had a single clog on any of them.

Are you shaking the ink cartridges several times before installing them? If not, you're supposed to. That gets rid of air pockets in the cartridges and settles the ink to the bottom.

Also, are you using a power strip to turn the printer off? If so, you're bypassing the head seals, and that will cause a problem.

Hello, Peter! You wrote on Tue, 27 Sep 2005 09:06:29 GMT:

P> We've been running a half dozen newer Epsons (R300's, R800's P> etc) and haven't had a single clog on any of them.

P> Are you shaking the ink cartridges several times before installing P> them? If not, you're supposed to. That gets rid of air pockets P> in the cartridges and settles the ink to the bottom.

I've been using my old Epson Photo 870 for years and I always use cheap compatible cartridges, It only clogs occasionally, and that's usually when I ignore it for a few weeks. I find if I use every couple of days it never clogs and still prints terrific photos. Honest! Maybe the newer ones are not as reliable, I couldn't comment about that as there's no way I'm going to replace the 870 in the near future just to get a few more pixels per inch.

with best regards, 3T39. E-mail: snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com

Hi Peter

Thanks for the advice. I haven't been shaking the cartridges prior to fitting, but then I've never seen anything in the paperwork that suggested you should, or in the " on screen " instructions that pop up when you start replacing a cartridge. I've also never had to do this with any other printer that I've owned, but I will give it a try on the next replacement ...

As far as turning off goes, it is basically never turned off, but it is used pretty much daily, and I would have thought that there was seldom much more than 12 hours between uses. As far as head sealing goes, I would have thought that the standby " park " position was the same as the printer-originated power down " park " position, thus sealing up the heads during periods of non use but perhaps that's not so. What you're saying would suggest that this is what you believe, and the heads get left in an ' out ' position if you just kill the power rather than allowing it to go through a power down sequence. If not, then I would suggest that that's a design oversight, and the heads should always be sealed when not actually printing. Even if it is so, I would not have expected bulk ink to dry in the nozzles that quickly, but perhaps I'm being over optimistic there. Comments ?

Perhaps these ' cartridge only ' printers don't sit well with my patterns of useage. I do know that in future, I will be going back to an HP. Even though the cartridges are more expensive, at least I'm getting a nice new head each time, and if one does block up, the only thing that's scrap is the cartridge, not the whole printer.

Thanks again, and if shaking and turning off seems to do any good, I'll post again in a few months, and say so.

Arfa

Epson seems to endorse shaking cartridges. Here's a couple of Epson manuals.

However this article says no, though they are talking about not shaking open cartridges, which is fairly obvious.

Mind, any article with gems of astounding insight like "With regular use, printer ink may begin to dwindle." doesn't fill me with confidence.

Dave

Those are Pigment ink printers.

It depends on what model printer you have, and what kind of ink it uses. It's clearly stated in our R800/R300/R200 manuals to shake the cartridges downward several times right before installing them. The insert that comes with the ink cartridges says the same thing.

These printers use pigment-based inks, which are thicker than the dye-based inks used in most of Epson's lower-end models. This might account for the difference in instructions.

Epson printers do seal their heads after a certain amount of inactivity. I was referring to turning the power off via a power strip, whereby the printer couldn't engage its seals.

BTW are you using Epson or third-party inks? If the latter, all bets are off with regard to clogging problems.

We've never found an HP inkjet that equals Epson's image quality. A few of their most recent models come close though.

Hi Arfa...

Have a suggestion for you if I may.

Grab yourself a copy of the ssc software (free) from ssclg.com.

A fantastic utility that replaces (or supplants) the Epson cleaning software. Allows you to clean only one head when required, rather than wasting ink cleaning both when not needed.

Has a "power" cleaning mode as well, so that 4 wasteful regular ones aren't needed.

Let's you reset the tank counters, so you can get every last bit of expensive ink from your carts.

Lets you stop the counter if you wish, or reset it to full if you want to refill your own carts.

Lets you hot swap carts without the printer insisting on re-charging them.

And more, waaaaay more. :)

Hope this helps, and take care.

Ken.

Disclaimer: I have nothing to do with ssc, other than having been a user for years.

I've been using my Epson Stylus Photo 960 for about 1.5 to 2 years now with no problems. It gets regular use with black text printing about 3 to 5 days a week and color photo printing about once a week to once a month. I've only used genuine Epson Inks and have only had a head clog once. Selecting the "cleaning" program solved the problem but did waste a lot of ink. I cringed as I heard it squirt into the bottom sponge.

Back in the late 90s I paid heaps for an Epson Stylus 500 printer. It was great at first, but then started producing "banded" printouts. I wasn't really surprised, because it didn't get much use. Eventually it got so bad that it was unusable. When I took it apart, I was stunned by how much massively expensive ink the thing had pumped into the huge absorbent pad under the mechanism in its unstoppable self-cleaning cycles. I vowed that I'd never ever touch another Epson printer, or inkjets in general if I could avoid them. However a mate loaned me his old HP Deskjet 500 which was totally reliable for years until I decided to upgrade. A couple of weeks ago I bought a little HP Laserjet 1020 which is perfect so far, for the small amount of invoice etc printing that I do.

Bob

I have a C60 that I use once a week. I use only Epson cartridges and it plugs up at least every other time I use it. We have used HPs, Canons and Lexmarks in the past, none of which plug up. Chuck

Yes, I had the Stylus Colour 500. It cost me about £275 IIRC and never lived up to the print quality of the 'sample' image. After a period where it was unused, it clogged up so badly that nothing would shift the blockage. It ended up in the bin. I always used Epson cartridges BTW. Not only was the print quality disappointing, the paper feed was dismal.

Some people knock HP printers, but at least I can put any old crap ink in the cartridges and it can't damage the printer. If the print head gets blocked beyond hope, I simply throw the cartridge in the bin and start off with a new one.

Dave

Hi Ken.I've got it and installed it, so we'll see how it goes. Thanks very much for the reference.

Interesting to see, if you follow the thread down, that I'm not the only one having these woes with the Epson. As a matter of interest, to all of those who comment on what inks I am using , they are the genuine article. Branded Epsons in Epson boxes, bought from high street retailer. I know many people who have come to grief with third party inks, and as this machine has fixed heads, I have never even contemplated using anything other than genuine manufacturer's inks. Just for the record, the printer is a " Stylus Photo RX425 "

Arfa

Epson printer's are pure crap, at least the one's I've wasted my money on. That includes the following models: Epson Stylus Pro and Pro XL. Epson Stylus 1500 and the later "Colorado" model. Epson 800

I have a storage locker full of Epson crap that we had to sideline because of the constant problems associated with these printers, namely clogging and loss of seal integrity on the ink tanks. I'd even managed to burn out the pezio heads on a couple of them running the endless cleaning cycles Epson insists would "fix" the banding problems. We run a pro print shop and in the mid to late 90's saw inexpensive inkjets as a solution for "spot color" work in our smaller print runs(offset). Also as a low cost proof system on our bigger four color work. The Epson's failed miserably, they were neither reliable enough to cost effective and Epson never came out with any pantone ink cartridges that were work a fck. We finally went with a couple of mid level plotters from Encad and haven't had any problems since. We've also purchased a few Lexmark printers as well as two of Canon's better offerings that have done a bangup job for our low-end work.

I can't emphasize enough that one should stay away from anything Epson. I'm only hanging on to the pile of Epson crap that I have because I've invested thousands into it and hope that someday some third party will offer upgrade kits to replace the head and ink supply system so that these units will actually print something besides test sheets and cleanup patterns.

What shaking is supposed to do is settle the ink into the bottom of the cartridge.( the cartridge contains a sponge that's soaked in ink) Why a sponge is beyond me, it just allows the introduction of air bubbles and promotes dry clogging if the cartridge is allowed to sit for more than a day or two. An old trick that many Epson owners used to use was to place the cartridge in a sock with the ink ports pointed outward and give the sock several fast hard spins in an attempt to drive the ink into the bottom of the cartridge and force the air either out the feed port or into the top of the cartridge. Some have even claimed this worked.

Lexmark? Lexmark?? I wish you'd include your company name, so I can be sure to keep my customers at least 100 feet from it.

Were you using third-party inks?

We had occasional clogs on our old Stylus Color 800, and zero clogs after nearly a year on our R800. Apparently Epson has addressed the problem, at least partially.

none ha escrito:

I have used the old stylus 500, was given a few other epsons a while back (i think they were 450s) and relatives have a photo810. In both cases i experienced the same clogging and hassle. After a massive clog resulted in no output and the cleaning cycles did nothing but wasted all the colour ink, The photo 810 i ended up dismantling, unscrewing the print head, removing it and cleaning the nozzles manually with a wet-wipe. That solved the problem, dunno how long it lasted. So at least it is possible to restore them that way. I know opening them up sounds time consuming but look at it this way: you'll spend as much time opening them up as you would fruitlessly running the cleaning prog. But in short: avoid 'em!

-B.

I had an old Stylus Color IIs that worked beautifully and never clogged. Later I had a Stylus 600 which would clog constantly. I also had a couple Canon printers that behaved similarly, HP is the only one that seems to be decent but I got a laser printer for my B&W stuff now and it never clogs.

I started keeping alcohol wipes in the computer room when my H-P would clog almost every time I used it (occasional use). I kept on keeping them here for my Lexmark, which clogs less but still often enough.

Yes, it's curious how the internals of these cartridges are constructed, isn't it ? You'd think that if air bubbles in the cartridge was a problem, they'd work the design up so that it wasn't the case.

Arfa