A little Fairy Story or is it !...

[The Hat]

I’ve had a few print head failures of late which goes with having loads of printers and not enough work to keep them all busy, Lazy or unused printers have a habit of dying.

The iP4000 developed a small clog in the yellow nozzles and I didn’t check it properly and went ahead and printed a 50 page document with it, and ever since the yellow nozzles remained clogged no matter how much soaking I gave it. (Compliments of the Yellow Gello syndrome )

The clog was not sufficient enough to stop me printing graphics on the printer only photos, so in the end I gave in and bought a new print head for it courtesy of Websnail.

Then I got hit with the Yellow Gello CLI-42 ink cartridge problem again this time in my iP4700 here is a nozzle print after extensive purging, soaking purging soaking etc, nothing worked and the only thing for it was to get a new print head.
Click to enlarge.

With the 4700 now out of commission, I couldn’t print anything worthwhile so I soaked the print head in some Fairy washing-up liquid for well over a week or two so much so I’d forgotten all about it.

It came to that time when I calmed down sufficient enough to think about needing a new print head and I remembered the duff head that I’d left soaking, so I had nothing to lose and washed and dried the head and put it back into the 4700.

I had previously purged all of the CLI-8 and CLI-42 cartridges and left them to dry so I refilled them all and tried a Head clean followed by a nozzle check, low and behold the yellow was now back working again, the cyan wasn’t dough. (Poorly purged cartridge !).

Here is a nozzle print from it now and as you can see it’s as good as new, I have tried it since with several stripes of 2 cm x 20 cm then with photos and next day the stripes were perfect again, I did this knowing that something’s a print head can deliver sufficient ink for a while and then fail later.
Click to enlarge

I was so impressed by this miracle cure that I did the same with my iX4000 print head which had been working for more than six months with the clog and it surprisingly came back to life again also, now I have a spare print head, Ops.

So what I am trying to say is DON’T rule anything out anymore if a head shows dead straight lines (Gaps) in the nozzle print ( Most lightly burned out nozzles) it’s still worth while giving the print head a week long soak in a couple of inches of washing-up liquid, it certainly surprised me.

I’ve had success recovering two of my duff print heads and two that I couldn’t revive so yes it is still worth while leave a head soaking even if it is painfully obviously that the head is burned out and if it doesn’t work then just move on.

Just don’t say never ever when it comes to print heads !

 

[Ron350]

That is good news.

When soaking a print head for a week or two how do you keep the two steel screws on the bottom from rusting?

 

[The Hat]

Hi Ron,
Just sitting in this solution deep enough to keep the ink inlets covered, I have not seen any signs of corrosion at all.

 

[Ron350]

OK I have a iP4000 print head that will get a two week soak in windex.

 

[Emulator]

When you say Fairy liquid, is this neat Fairy or a water solution, if so how strong?

Incidently, for those unfamiliar, Fairy Liquid is a particularly effective washing up detergent, used in EU.

 

[The Hat]

When you say Fairy liquid, is this neat Fairy or a water solution, if so how strong?

Hi Ian,

Yes that the stuff that’s kind to your hands, I just put two dessert spoonfuls of the liquid into water hand hot, just enough to cover the ink inlets and then forget about it for a week or so.

I did try putting a spoonful of Ammonia in the mix for the pigment printer head but it made no difference, so I would recommend just using the Fairy liquid and nothing else.

OK I have a iP4000 print head that will get a two week soak in windex.

Ron to be fair I had tried W5 window cleaner mixed with Water, Alcohol and Ammonia solution before that and it didn’t work so I just put the head back into the printer and carried on using it with the clogs still in the nozzles.

To avoid confusion here please, this washing-up liquid is not Automatic dishwasher liquid, so never put Automatic dishwasher liquid/power anywhere near a print head that you wish to reuse again, I wouldn’t do it and this is just my personal opinion.

I must caution everybody about using any chemicals to be careful when mixing them together, you can get one hell of a reaction if you don’t know what you’re doing, but this Fairy liquid is perfectly safe to use mixed in any water, the only side effects I have witnessed are bubbles and soft hands..

 

[Tudor]

@The Hat could you take a picture of the bottle for us? Front an back.

 

[The Hat]

Which bottle ?
This one....

 

[PeterBJ]

Here is an old article about cleaning Epson printers using a household cleaner. Even if the article is old, it contains an up-to-date list of household cleaners supposedly suitable for print head cleaning: http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/article_pages/inkjet_cleaning.html

 

[Ron350]

Wow the Fairy dish washing liquid is in the same bottle as Dawn dish washing liquid uses.

Dawn advertises that their dishwashing soap is used to remove crude oil from waterfowl (birds) yet gentle enough not to hurt them.

Makes me wonder if the two soaps are any thing alike? Dawn is sold by Proctor & Gamble, Cincinnati, Ohio.

http://www.dawn-dish.com/us/dawn/

Hat now you are going to have to give detailed instructions on this new cleaning process.