Head cleanings vs. printing purge patterns

InkjetMall Customer Support Printer Maintenance & Cartridges
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I have an Epson P400. I haven’t been printing much lately, but I do run a nozzle check every day. Most days, the nozzle check has gaps and I need to run a head cleaning. I’m wondering if I’d waste less ink if I periodically printed the purge pattern “QTR-8 Channel flush.tif”. I would print a reduced-size version of the purge pattern, rather than a full page. I’m wondering if this would be better exercise for the printer (and use less ink in the long run) than all those head cleanings.

FYI I keep the printer covered and run a humidifier in the printer room. I perform the full maintenance checklist once a month.

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IMHO, a nozzle check doesn’t do all that much. I print a purge pattern in calibration mode once or twice a week. A while back I posted some purge patterns that you could print at 2880 super, which maximised the number of back and forth passes and thus agitation of the ink in the carts, but were set up not to use too much ink in the process.

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Thanks for your reply. I found your post with the attachments. I have a question, but I’ll post it to that discussion.

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Can you direct me to the referenced post with attachments?

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