We’ve seen what can go wrong, what can we do to prevent the problems before they happen?

Ink Delivery

Many issues with printer ink-flow are best prevented rather than cured. Keep your printer clean! Use lint-free cloths and such to help prevent those nasty fibres that could cause obstructions to the printhead. We also recommend brushing down your paper with a drafting brush (or wide, non-abrasive paintbrush) prior to feeding them into the printer. It is the nature of art papers to be a little more ‘dusty’ so this is a really good idea, especially as you do not want to print on to dust that will then fall off the print - leaving a gaping white hole.

We would also advise you to check that the print-head-seal is working correctly. We’ll cover this in more detail later, but you should be able to see that the sponge is level and sprung-loaded by two small springs, it should also be slightly damp to the touch (but clean your fingers afterwards!). Be careful! Anything more than cautious handling of this seal can result in springs popping out - which is definitely a BAD THING. Also, check that your printer is regularly returning to the home position after prints: within a couple of seconds of finishing a print, the head should move to the home position, and the little plastic lock should pop up from the base. If you can be fairly confident that the head is being sealed correctly, it should help you to reduce in your mind the possible causes of problems.

Some users of Epson printers (large-format and desktop models) that they feel that keeping the air the printer is working in humid helps, some report the opposite. Some like to keep humidifiers on (particularly if they have air-conditioning on), and others cover their printer with a plastic sheet and place a bucket of water underneath it. Certainly, one would imagine that dry air will encourage any ink that is not properly ‘sealed’ to dry out.

An additional method to help prevent drying out, especially are not using the printer regularly, is to run a nozzle-check every two or three days. This keeps the ink in the nozzles fresh. An alternative, we believe, is to turn the printer on and off again. We think that turning the printer on runs a ‘mini’ cleaning-cycle, and that this will do the same thing. Unfortunately, it will not give you the assurance that a nozzle-check does, that all is well.

What could cause too much ink to sit on the base of the print head? If you run too many cleaning cycles in succession, an awful lot of ink is held in the sponge. It will run down into a special large sponge inside the printer eventually, but initially, the ink could be carried back onto the head. The general recommendation is never to run more than two or three cleaning cycles at any one time. Ink sitting on the head risks it drying there, or in really bad cases being thrown off onto the paper, the rollers, or the pizza wheels as the head moves across the page and stops quickly.

And what can we do to help prevent airlocks? Firstly, we think you can help by storing your cartridges right-way-up, or possibly even so that the output port is pointing slightly downwards. In this way, you ensure that there is ink and not air near the port. Prior to installation of a new cartridge, give it a couple of taps on a hard surface to dislodge any remaining air bubbles that are sitting near the bottom of the cartridge. Replace a dry / empty cartridge with a fresh ‘wet’ one as soon as possible - even a few minutes without a cartridge in place could encourage the ink in the supply line to dry, and / or encourage air locks.

Finally, we have the issue of getting air into the cartridge (in the right way). The first thing to do before installing the cartridge is to tear off the coloured strip of plastic, as per the instructions. This is step 1, and opens the vent hole. Ensure that the strip of plastic has come off completely, and not left any clear film or other remnants, in which case remove it carefully with a knife. Step 2 is to check, as you install the cartridge, that the little sponge under the cartridge retaining lids (blue plastic, on Epsons) will not sit over the breather hole. This only effects some printers with some third party cartridges. If it would obstruct the breather hole, move it slightly by pulling it away and moving it elsewhere under the lid. Once you’ve moved the sponge once you shouldn’t have to do it again unless perhaps you change ink manufacturer again.

Horizontal Positioning

The best policy for preventing printer problems with horizontal positioning is to keep the printer clean (keeping dust off the plastic positioning bar), and to ensure that there are no obstructions on the carriage. Check that the mechanism for lifting the print-head-seal onto the printhead is smooth.

Vertical Positioning

The accuracy of the vertical positioning of a printer seems to depend heavily both on the individual printer, and the paper stock being printed on, in conjunction with the setting of the head-gap / paper-thickness lever.

A good test of the accuracy of your printer is to print a twenty-inch long test image (it does not need to have a picture as such - a ‘ruler’ image will do!) Once you have the print, you measure it, and if it is shorter or longer than 20" by more than 1/8th" then you may need to try again with a different paper thickness setting, or you may have a printer with an inaccurate feed mechanism. In the latter case, it may not be enough of an error to show banding problems with normal Epson inks and printer-drivers, but it may become an issue with other processes such as ConeTech Piezography™BW where precise vertical feeding is critical to successful printing. Either way, we feel you have a good case for getting a replacement printer under warranty.

You should also keep the rollers and platen clean to help prevent these issues.

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.