You may need to use cleaning cartridges in different circumstances. Sometimes, you can get away without the use of cleaning cartridges, even if they are ‘recommended’! So how do you tell the difference, and which option is going to be right for you?

Before we answer that question, however, we should remind you that ‘Cleaning Cartridges’ in this sense does not mean a cleaning fluid designed to wash away old or dried inks from a damaged printhead (though they may work for such a purpose). We mean the term more in the sense of washing away ink of one type, so that a different ink will not mix badly with the old. If you mix liquids of different acidity together, some fairly odd effects can be seen which can involve the fluids ‘gelling up’. If you are of drinking-age, try mixing Coca-cola and Baileys for a truely disgusting example of liquids becoming ‘something else’ (and a truely disgusting drink too!).

OK, back to cleaning cartridges:

• Lyson recommend the use of cleaning cartridges prior to converting to any of their inks. Many customers who have made the switch without cleaning cartridges and without problems. However, we have had some customers experience problems that they solved later with the use of cleaning cartridges, and of course this wasted their time and inks. It therefore may be the safer option to use cleaning cartridges, but it is up to you!
• For most of the other inks we sell, we suggest that cleaning cartridges should not be necessary before use, as long as you are currently using the original printer manufacturers inks. We can not guarantee compatibility with every other third-party ink, however, so it may be advisable to use cleaning carts if moving from a different (non OEM) ink;
• Cleaning cartridges also reduce the risk of colour contamination between inks with different colours (e.g. printing for a while with some residues of the original ink remaining). This could lead to colour innacuracies at first, and also prints with unreliable longevity (mixed ink types will have ‘unknown’ longevity characteristics, and may become unstable producing prints that fade rapidly);
• If you are experiencing printhead problems, nozzle issues etc, but are not planning to change inks, the use of cleaning cartridges may be useful in clearing your problem;
• Please note that whichever route you are taking, we strongly recommend that you install and test a printer with the original cartridges that come with the machine, prior to considering one of our inks. Printheads are not shipped ‘empty’ but with non-ink-fluids in that could themselves conflict with other inks, and in addition, a small percentage of many printers fail ‘out of the box’. It is advisable to find this out with the original manufacturers (OEM) inks in place!

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.