3 Ways To Clean Epson Printhead Clogs Problem

When your Epson printer print quality drops, dirty print heads may be responsible for transferring the ink to paper. Dry ink can clog the print heads, resulting in lighter or darker bands in your prints. Cleaning the print heads can clear these clogs and restore the proper ink flow.

What is the main cause of Epson Printhead clogs?

The main reason behind the printer's printhead clogs is that nozzles are blocked by air or ink. To clean the Epson printhead, dig up the leading cause behind the printhead clogs. It will lead you to the solution to clean Epson printheads.

You keep printing with an empty ink cartridge: Using blank ink cartridges can cause air bubbles to form that can clog your cartridge and printhead. In addition to clogs, printing with a blank ink cartridge will cause your printhead to overheat and permanently damage it.

You do not turn off your printer: The ink dries up in the nozzle when you do not use it regularly. Turning on your printer causes the printer to access a mini-cleaning cycle, and the ink starts flowing again.

You do not use your printer regularly: As mentioned earlier, the ink dries out when unused, so if you only use your printer twice a month, we suggest you pick up a laser printer. Laser printers will use toner powder and do not dry out.

Knowing the main leading causes of clogged printheads will help take the important steps to prevent them from happening. As the old saying goes, prevention is always better than cure.

3 Ways to Clean Epson Printhead

Before opening your unit, check your nozzle, access the cleaning cycle using the menu on the printer, and clean Epson printhead manually.

Printhead cleaning cycle

Epson printer models have a very efficient cleaning cycle that will normally clean the nozzles in one or two cycles. But remember that the latest printer models have long cleaning cycles, which unfortunately tend to use more ink each time. Here is how you can get started:

• Before doing anything else, ensure that the printer does not show any error codes on your LCD screen.
• Click on the Home button, choose "Setup," and press "Maintenance."
• Next, choose "Printhead Nozzle Check"
• Then, your printer will create a page with 4 color grids to show which nozzles are blocked.
• If no interval exists, click on Done.
• Select "Clean Epson Printhead" and continue if gaps or lines are blurry.

Caution: Never turn off the printer during the cleaning cycle. It may cause permanent damage to the unit!

If you access two or three cycles without any improvement in print quality, allowing the printer to rest for some hours up to 6 hours of waiting time is recommended by Epson. After this, go to the cleaning cycle again and see if that improves the print quality. Many people will continue to access the cleaning cycle until the head is clean, often running 6 or 8 cycles, which can work until the following day when every ink used in the cleaning cycle has dried and plugs again. Of course, doing this too frequently will wear out your clog over time and use up a lot of ink.

If you do not see any improvements, contact Epson for further guidelines. You can also manually clean Epson printheads the integral pieces to clear stubborn ink clogs if they are no longer under warranty.

Clean Epson printhead can be done manually in many ways, some more complicated and challenging than others. Here are some troubleshooting solutions that will range from the easiest way to most that will work on most Epson inkjet printer models.

Clean Epson Printhead with the help of the sponge with distilled water

• Close the printer and open the top of it. You can be able to see the printhead assembly.
• Look for a small plastic lever that will pop on the left side of the assembly if the printer is not printing. Move forward and release the printhead, then push the assembly to the right side. It releases the assembly entirely so you can push it.
• If there is no lever to the printhead assembly, print a page with the top and disconnect the printer with the assembly in the center, unlocked.
• You can see sponges, which collect ink from the cartridge into the carriage. Using an eyedropper or plastic syringe, saturate the sponge with distilled water or Windex solution.
• Move back the assembly, the damper as far as it will go.
• Allow the distilled water to set for at least 15 minutes. For best results, consider letting the printer soak overnight.
• Print 6 to 8 pages with text and pictures until your prints are clean and crisp. If you're still not getting great results, consider moving on to the next step to clean Epson Printhead.

Clean Epson Printhead with distilled water in the ink port

• Please take out the ink cartridge from its printhead carriage.
• With the ink cartridge removed, you see small cone-shaped indents that move the ink from the cartridge to the printhead. These are the ink ports, and there should be one for every color/black cartridge.
• Using an eyedropper or plastic syringe, pour a few drops of distilled water or printhead cleaner into the ink port that may be plugged in. Don't put cleaner in all ports. If you are unsure which color is which, look under the ink port for color residue. Typically, yellow is on the far right, and moving to the left, it turns magenta, cyan, and finally, black on the far left.
• Change the ink cartridge and wait for the printer to set up the newer cartridge. If any water or solution drips from the printhead, wipe it off with a paper towel before proceeding with it.
• Print out 6 to 8 pages of text and pictures to test the clarity.

Conclusion

Try these three methods to clean Epson printhead by yourself. Printhead issues are expected for most Epson printer customers. Be careful with Epson printers that use pigment inks. This ink type can trigger more printhead issues than dye-based inks. This clean Epson printhead solution can work if your problem has the same problem.