You do this by freeing up the printhead to be moved by hand, then looking under the printer cover to the right. The parking pad is most often to this side of the printer. The image to the right shows the parking pad of a well-used Epson 1270; the pad itself and the sponge material it contains is highlighted in yellow, the springs that support this structure in red, and the post that is pushed by the printhead so the pad seals under the printhead, in green.

This pad can often build up too much ink on it, and this can prevent it doing it’s proper job of keeping the underside of the printhead clean, and sucking ink from the printhead during clean / prime cycles. On most printers, the pad is supported on a spring arrangement to help it seal under the printhead. You will need to be careful with how you apply pressure to the pad, as too much could cause these springs to pop out (and this is awkward to fix, and until resolved makes the pad virtually useless).

At the minimum, absorb up some of the excess ink with a lint-free rag. You may need to follow this with a few drops of cleaner fluid. Mop up the ink / cleaner again, and repeat until the pad is slightly moist, but of course a lot cleaner. Check that you have not replaced the ink with any lint from the cloth, and repark the printhead.

Note: Some more modern Epson printers like the Stylus Photo 950 do not have foam on the parking pad. This limits the cleaning that is necessary or possible with this type of pad. The lack of sponge on the pad regrettably does not exclude the possibility of lint and dust being caught under the printhead, which may need to be fixed using this procedure: How do I clean the underside of the printhead?. Perhaps the lack of this sponge is why the Epson 950 suffers occasional complete head-drop-outs and ultimately, why it was not manufactured for long?

Please note that MWORDS has closed. We aim to retain these support pages in the hope that they may benefit our past customers, but regret that we can no longer offer further comment or support in relation to the information above.