R2000 - Cleaning print head

[racing_green]

I'm cleaning the print head using stripe of wet sponge placed under the head and running it manually back and forth. The cartridges are in place - should I remove them? It looks like ink is flowing down to the sponge. I can't easily remove the head, so this is the only method for me.

Edit:
Lesson learned: Ink does flow down - removing of the cartridges is essential

 

[racing_green]

The next step was to soak rest pad in cleaning fluid and leave it over night. Somehow I missed that if there is no air gap between the print head and the cleaning fluid in the pad the gravity might drain my cartridges. And that's exactly what has happened: I woke up to 6 out of 8 cartridges _bone_ dry. Gloss was half-drained and red survived because there was air lock in the head (check pattern was showing empty field)

Lesson learned: remove the cartridges when using "soak the pad" method.

 

[racing_green]

I tried to use an old cartridge as a cleaning cartridge (motorbike insect remover + isopropyl as anti-foaming agent), but my printer didn't want to recognise the cartridge. So I decided to use the "soak the pad" method on half of the pad and i hope gravity will drain the cleaning solution slowly through blue ink chamber/nozzle. I'm down to from 7 to 4 gaps in blue and one on magenta

"Mastery is nine times patience." Ursula K. Le Guin

 

[racing_green]

Switched to the famous pharmcist' mixture, but so far the clogs are winning. Patience, patience... All cartridges loaded with the solvent, driver set to flood the paper and printing away like there is no tomorrow. Soaking over night didn't help, but I'll repeat that.

 

[racing_green]

My printer decided that there is no tomorrow.
"The printer's ink pads are at the end of their service life. Please contact Epson support.:

I hope I can make WIC reset running on linux...

Edit: WIC reset + alien (I use rpm based system) did the job.
Edit2: for fedora linux users:
1. Download WIC from here: http://www.2manuals.com/WIC/linux/
2. Unpack deb to directory with: "alien -r -g -v wicreset-5.00.57.deb"
3. Go to /wicreset-5.00.53/usr/bin/wicreset

There might some missing icons etc, but the program is functional.

P.S. if someone knows an open source solution please share..