"Edu" wrote in message
oups.com...
Hello.

I am tired of buying a new printer whenever I try to print after 2
months of having it turned off. The catridges are always dry. Printer
cleaning program does not always improve it.
If I buy, for example, an HP printer, I can solve the problem by buying
a new catrigde set, because the catridge is formed by the ink container
and the printing head (the part I really need to change...).

But when you buy colour&black catridges for HP, you're apying more than
the new printer cost (at here in my country).

So, I prefer to use printers which don't replace the printer head in
the new catridge. For example Epson (or canon, or others).

I would like to have any easy technique to clean the printing head
after a long inactivity time. In some cases, the dissasembly of the
printing head is tedious.

Anyone has developed a way to easily clean it???

Thanks in advance!
Eduardo


If u don't need photo quality printout, a laser printer might be your best
bet, as one poster suggested. They will never dry out on ya, because well..
the ink is dry powder to begin with! Manufacturers are reported to be
working on dry type inks for inkjet technology, but I'm not sure how close
this is to being market-ready. Unfortunately, present-day affordable color
laser printers aren't much use for photos, so if u need pretty pics or wide
color gamut graphics, you're stuck with inkjets or specialty sublimation
printers.

Printer manufacturers don't make money on printers, they make money on INK.
It's that way everywhere. Indeed, many computer systems, even low-end ones,
sold in the USA include FREE printers -- u won't find any free replacement
ink carts.
As for the thermal inkjets, Canon is about the least expensive ink u can
buy.

I got sick and tired of my thermal carts clogging when I didn't remember to
print something every 2-3 days, so I switched to an Epson, which uses a
piezo-electric "mechanical" head rather than a thermal one -- u don't
replace the head every time u replace a cart. This _should_ but doesn't
result in vastly cheaper ink, as Epson price gouges with their ink just like
the other manu's.
I no longer buy original inks. I bought a refill kit with clear carts as
soon as my Epson carts ran out -- they don't really run out completely,
because the chip on the cart tells the printer it's "empty" when there's
actually about 20-25% ink left (gee thanks, Epson!). I've had no more
trouble with the third-party ink than I had with the original Epson ink, and
it saved me gobs of money ($45 for 6 clear carts with autoreset chips and
enough ink for 9 refills per color).

From my many years experience with thermal inkjets, I feel comfortable
saying that you are fighting a losing battle trying to keep these carts free
flowing, most especially if u are a refiller. Oh sure, u will get maybe all
nozzles open, once.. for a while. But if u forget to print or perform a
cleaning routine every few days, you'll find at least one nozzle is clogged
yet again.
I've tried all the tricks. Soaking on a moist paper towel (sometimes for a
whole day) usually opens most, but not all nozzles after wasting plenty ink
in the attempt. Letting the head sit in a petri dish of warm water will
make u think this is working wonders as you'll witness streams of ink
pouring out the nozzles, but ultimately your cleaning utility will show some
nozzles still aren't printing. It also wastes a ton of ink in the attempt.
Siphoning with a syringe and rubber seal wastes a ton of ink, too, and
doesn't always open all the nozzles.
Sometimes, after wasting quite a bit of ink, you may conclude the head
itself has burned out, especially if you've refilled it several times --
thermal heads don't last that long.
A major problem with thermal carts is not actually the head but rather the
sponge. If the sponge begins to clog, ink will not flow properly to the
head well and therefore what you THINK is clogged nozzles is actually a
clogged sponge. The only certain remedy for this is to pop the top off the
cart, remove the sponge, flush all the old ink out, let it dry (or help it
with a hair dryer), flush the head itself, replace the sponge and refill. I
hate the damn things. They require far more effort than they're worth.

My Epson may spend more ink on startup purging, but the amount of work and
frustration it saves me in trying to keep the ink flowing is WELL worth the
difference. And with the third-party Epson inks being so inexpensive, the
cost isn't much greater.