A common problem we hear about is people having one or two colours not printing properly, or even worse not at all. This is usually caused by a blockage of dried ink in the print head. It is easily fixed by running the printer head cleaning on your printer.
Clean Cycle In The Printer’s Menu
Every printer has a cleaning cycle built in and most of these are accessed from the printer’s menus. Try looking at the Maintenance or Setup menus to find the area that says printer head cleaning. However some basic printers do not have menus. You can access the cleaning cycle from the printer’s software on your computer. This works by flushing the system with ink and is designed to clear blockages that occur.
Printing a Test Page
At the end of the clean cycle there will be an option to print a test page. This uses a little bit of ink from each nozzle in the printer. It will usually print a series of square boxes or coloured bars. If there is a problem on one of the colours it will clearly show up on this page. Running 2 – 3 printer head cleaning cycles may be necessary, but if there is no improvement it is worth replacing the cartridge causing the problem.
Next Level Printer Head Cleaning
You can’t always fight ink with ink and if there is no improvement the blockage may require a solvent to break down the dried up ink. In more serious situations you’re going to need chemicals. Remove the ink cartridge and drip nail polish remover or isopropyl alcohol where the ink normally goes. Window cleaner also has a mix of chemicals that is useful to dissolve dried ink. The application and clean up when using this method is potentially a messy job!
If you cannot clear the blockage by this means of printer head cleaning then the printer may be at the end of its life.