Yeah, I’m having problems with the printers again. Act like this is something new.
Anyway, I’ve got someone who can repair my printers at work, but I basically have to diagnose them first. I’m using Epson880s. I’ve got one that won’t stay clean. I run the nozzle check / cleaning cycle and on one it’ll be almost good and on the next it’ll be terrible. So…? Does it need a new print head? Or is it something else?
I’m hoping somebody on can lend some expertise…
Have you tried different paper?
But really, inkjets are just about disposable these days. And they’re expensive to run. For business use, you should consider laser printers instead.
Unfortunately this isn’t normal office work. Laser printers don’t work with our labels and we get cheap ink. It’s just a matter of keeping the printers working.
It probably is clogged ink nozzles in the print head - if you have access to a cost-effective way of getting them swapped out, then I guess that’s worth a try.
Epson printers gout an especially large amount of ink through their print heads routinely just to keep them clean - this does mean that at some point, the waste ink reservoir will fill up and the printer will stop working anyway.
In some cases, the waste ink reservoir becomes full before its time, or crusts over and spills - this can cause the print head to pick up congealed ink on each traverse and spread it across the paper.
When you say you get cheap ink… do you mean you get cheap ink, or you get genuine Epson supplies at heavy discounts? If the former, you might be getting what you pay for and this could be the cause of the clogging.
I’ve worked in IT for 20 years. I’ve seen very many faulty printers over the years. Cheap ink and cheap toner are often false economies. As for labels, you can get laser-proof labels (one pass only!), and you can get laser printers with straight-through paper paths.
We get generic ink. We’ve replaced the waste ink pad in several of the printers, so now I’m trying to get those to work right. Unfortunately, they were sitting unused for several months, which I know isn’t good for them. I’ve tried the Epson cleaning fluid in this one several times and it’s not helping.
So, time to replace the print head, you think?
Unfortunately, I don’t get to choose what printers, paper, or ink we use. But I print a metric buttload of high quality custom-cut labels for every shipment and since we can now repair them I don’t feel a need to rock the boat about them.
Ah, this is important: you are entirely correct that it’s not good for them. Ink jet printers of this low calibre should be used at least once a week. This keeps the ink flowing and the print heads cleaned and prevents any build-up of solid ink.
If you can do so for considerably less than the price of a new printer, yes, I suppose.
Some printers will self-clean periodically if kept on standby, even if they’re not used for printing, but I’m not sure if your model does this.
Thanks guys.
Now if I could just figure out what’s wrong with the other five printers… (They’re not plugged in and most of them don’t have ink in them. I don’t really want to waste the ink either.)
Am I right in thinking that, after the waste ink pad, the print head is the most likely cause of problems? I know random thin blue lines and a single color not working no matter how many cartridges you try are both symptoms.