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.


Perhaps its the surfactant action that is required in ultrasonic baths,
rather than oil/grease dissolving function.