Here is one way to dry out a soaked Canon print head.

[joseph1949]

Here is one way to dry out a soaked Canon print head.

The following address tells how to dry out a cellphone:

www.popularmechanics.com/technology/how-to/tips/4269047

The title of the article is: How to Save Your Wet Cellphone: Tech Clinic

You can replace the word cellphone with print head and follow the instructions.

Here is how I would try a print head:

1. Remove the print head from the Windex Original soak. Windex Original is the name of the soaking liquid.

Note: On another thread The Hat gave instructions (see threadNeed help. My nozzle checks are bad on my Canon PIXMA MX 870go to post #16) on how to soak and dry a print head. I would follow the instructions.

2. Hold up the print head over a clean white paper towel and let it drip dry. Turn the print head every which way to be sure to remove as much of the liquid as possible. Take your time. Now examine the paper towel. Is the paper towel discolored? The Windex will give you a very, very light aqua-blue color. If you see any other color you will need to place the print head back into the container. The container should be cleaned out and contain fresh Windex. Resoak the print head.

3. Assuming the print head shows no discoloration on the paper towel you can now two things:

1. Resoak the print head in distilled water or some other water that is safer than tap water. My thinking is that the Windex is not the best liquid to stay in the print head. You may not be able to remove all of the Windex and yes, you may not be able to remove all of the distilled water. I believe that the distilled water is less harmful to the print head. The Windex is the best liquid to clean the print head, but not the best liquid to leave in the print head while the print head is drying. The distilled water will wash out the Windex that is remaining in the print head.

It is your call to use the distilled water. I am being very anal here.

2. Do not resoak the print head in distilled water.

4. Place the drip-dryed print head in a prepared container. What is a prepared container:

Note: you may want to vacuum out the Windex. Your call, but be careful.

Caution: Do not use compressed air.

A prepared container is one that will have room for the drying material on the bottom, on the sides, and on top with the print head in the middle.

I would rotate the print head 90 degrees every four hours. When you are rotating the print head the print head should be positioned as it is in the unithorizontally. If you want you can turn the print head on its end and dry it in this position for four hours and then switch ends and try for another four hours. The end drying is very anal. Your call.

Note: If you cover the inlet screens with the silica gel packs, please be careful. Please do not shake the container with the print head in the container. Let gravity and time do the work. If you shake the container the gel packs or the sides of the container may damage the contacts or some other part on the print head!!!!!!

5. If you are using the silica gel packets you are good to go. If you want to use the rice here is what I suggest:

Wrap the print head in a large paper towel. Seal off the ends with rubber bands. Replace the paper towel every four hours.

6. Why am I being so anal? Because the act of soaking and drying a print head is one of last resort. I would do everything I could do to have a normal nozzle check before resorting to cleaning a print head. Cleaning a print head is not for the faint of heart. THAT WAY MONSTERS BE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

7. Before you place the print head back into the unit you have to be sure that the print head is completely dry. How? Follow the above instructions. And cross your fingers.

Thank you.

 

[ghwellsjr]

Yes, you want to make sure your print head is completely dry before applying power to it.

But rice??? All you need to do is put your print head on top of your refrigerator on a couple sheets of paper towel for a couple days. The purpose of a desiccant is to absorb moisture in an enclosed space. It's not going to dry out something any faster than warm, open, flowing air. That's exactly what you get from the back of your refrigerator.

And I wouldn't use compressed air to blow into the print head--that will just force the moisture deeper inside the print head. The suction from a wet-dry vacuum cleaner is fine.

 

[Mowerman90]

I've found over the years that the quickest way to dry a printhead is to blast it with about 100 lbs of compressed air. It goes from soaking wet to perfectly dry in about 30 seconds.
I've done this time and time again without any problems.

 

[ghwellsjr]

And there are people who claim that you don't even have to dry the print head, you can go straight from tap water to printer with no ill effects. I'm giving advice that I believe is very conservative because there may be hundreds of people taking this advice and even if there is only a 1% chance that compressed air can damage a print head, we don't want even one person to suffer ill from taking an unnecessary risk.

 

[joseph1949]

To: ghwellsjr

Thank you for your reply.

The purpose of the thread was to elicit as many ideas as possible to dry a soaked print head.

Your reply tells me that the thread is working.

Your statement about compressed air is a good one. Many people use compressed air to clean their key boards and whatever on/in their computer. Using compressed air on a print head is not a good idea. I did not mention compressed air in my thread, but compressed air is mentioned in the Popular Mechanics article in a positive way. Using a wet/dry Shop-Vac was mentioned in the article and this was what I was referring to when I said you could vacuum a print head.

Note: I am not sure using compressed air on a cellphone is a good idealow pressure or not.

Your idea to place the print head on top of the refrigerator is a good one. But for me and many others we would have to remove the stuff off the top of the refrigerator, clean the top, and clean the coils (and why not!). So, cleaning the print head will force you to do something that you should do anyway.

In conclusion, I hope my thread will elicit many ideas on soaking/drying a print head. We can remove the bad ideas and kept the good ones. The forum should have a FAQ section and How to clean/dry a print head. should be one of the FAQs.

Thank you.