"N_Cook" wrote in message
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Ian Field wrote in message
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"N_Cook" wrote in message
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Ian Field wrote in message
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"Mick Nowell" wrote in message
news Since I had a syringe of black printer ink that worked just fine on
a
Canon
250i, I decided to try filling the cartridge on my Dell A920.

Its gone from streaky printing - to printing completely blank pages.

Is this a problem of priming the nozzles - or incompatible inks
gumming
up
the works?

Thanks.

Epson 2200 owner myself. I would try to run nozzle cleaning. If
you don't have pref's that perform this try re-inserting the
cartidge
and let the automation take care of priming. You might have to do
this
three times. Anymore = fail.

All the Epson printers I've seen, the print head was part of the
printer
so
it doesn't get replaced with the cartridge - now I avoid Epson, once
they're
blocked - they're blocked!

The Dell cartridge nozzles just needed priming - I did that by
sucking.

The ink tasted *VERY NASTY* and I got a black tongue - but it now
works.

There were a couple of colour cartridges that felt like they had some
weight
in them, I got one of those going again with a few minutes in an
ultrasonic
cleaner and leaving them to soak overnight.


what fluid did you use in the ultrasonic bath / soaking ?

Water with a dash of Stardrops detergent.

The ink is water based - any hydrocarbon solvent would curdle the ink
like
putting vinegar in milk!


isn't detergent a hydrocarbon?
So I take it that de-ionised water as the fluid rather than methylated
spirit or paraffin is the correct medium.

I saw a BP oil company branded bottle of washing up liquid once years ago.

Not sure if it has any relevance to this topic, years ago I saw in student
digs a physics student had written on the bathroom wall; "were it not for
the difference between carbohydrates and hydrocarbons - we'd dissolve
ourselves when we fart in the bath!".

The Stardrops detergent is distributed by: Star brands Limited Birmingham,
UK if you want to tap them for more info, if I didn't have any Stardrops I
would've used washing up liquid - most places that sell ultrasonic cleaners
offer some "special" detergent for use in them, but I rarely find myself
overwhelmed by excessive disposable income!

Acetone is water soluble, but even diluted may damage some types of plastic.