Clogged(?) R200 printer head

[Gregg]

Hi,

My R200 was off for couple of days and today I noticed the colors changed so I did a Nozzle Check included in the Maintenance utility.
The printout showed the Cyan Light pattern was no there at all. Did 5 head cleanings through the utility , removed and reloaded the cartridge but there are still blank spots on the Cyan Light printout. The other 5 heads are OK.
What do you suggest to solve this problem? Any better way to clean the heads?
The inks I'm using are not the original Epson ones.
Thank you.

[makntraks]

Hi,

My R200 was off for couple of days and today I noticed the colors changed so I did a Nozzle Check included in the Maintenance utility.
The printout showed the Cyan Light pattern was no there at all. Did 5 head cleanings through the utility , removed and reloaded the cartridge but there are still blank spots on the Cyan Light printout. The other 5 heads are OK.
What do you suggest to solve this problem? Any better way to clean the heads?
The inks I'm using are not the original Epson ones.
Thank you.

Probably borked by now...
I've never had a problem and most of the time my printer is off for days at a time...
One thing I've never trusted is off brand carts...

Good luck,
makntraks

[Gregg]

Hi,

I know the it's best to stick to the original ones but $36/no name/ vs $85/original/ looks tempting. There's a color difference between the two but you can notice it only if you compare to the original and I noticed people don't care too much about that if at all.
So, any suggestions?

[GizmoTheGremlin]

Try removing the print head and placing it in a stream of warm water from the tap. The ink should for the most part be soluble in water, and eventually would unclog it. The warmth is to help with the dissolving process.

Worst case scenario, you may have to buy a new print head.

[GizmoTheGremlin]

by the way, be very careful when handling your print head. If it's not already borked, you can easily bork it yourself.

[noki]

One thing I've never trusted is off brand carts...

I don't know about that...have 870 Photo Stylus for years, used $5.00 carts from day 2 (after the OEMs emptied), printed 100s and 100s of photos. Still great today.

[jetfan]

you would be better off with distilled water, I never had the problem
personally, and I too, having been using off brands for years! But I
do remember someone at an ink place telling me to run distilled water
over the jets, it will soften the dried ink and then you will be in the clear.
Your other alternative would be to keep cleaning the heads, I did have to
clean mine once about ten times, but you waste a lot of ink. Good luck

[dvdmeister]

gregg,

I had the same problem before and here is what I did to fix it.

check the ink level using the epson utility program, if it shows 20% or less remaining, replace the ink cartridge and do the nozzle check again and it should be OK.

I do not trust the ink level monitor program even when I use OEM cartridges let alone non-OEM. Good luck.

[dmagic1]

Could your cart just be empty? Maybe it wasn't filled correctly and it ran out before the chip reported empty.

[Gregg]

Hi,
Thank you for the suggestions.
The cartridge is ~35% full was brand new.
Did several head cleanings through the Epson maintenance utility and every time the result was better /starting from nothing at all/ but there are still few blank spots.
After the procedures above the printer sat for couple of hours and obviously "unclogged" itself a little bit more. May be by tomorrow it will be OK
Removing the print head looks like a hassle to me. If the problem persists going for a new one would be better for me.