Turned on printer while paper towel still beneath print head! Ink everywhere!

InkjetMall Customer Support Printer Maintenance & Cartridges
1

Made a big big boo-boo. Like I said, turned on printer while paper towel still beneath print head! Ink everywhere! All over towel. Completely saturated in ink beneath print heads. I imagine now that the underside of the heads is caked in ink. The band that moves the print head back and fore was vibrating wildly and jarring the head. Would you still continue to use at this point or do you think the nozzzles will be very compromised by this.

I had Epson coming around tomorrow to pick up the printer for maintenance because I had a problem with a paper jam. A problem which I rectified so called them off. Should I call them back again? The money has already left my account for the service. Do you think it’s possible this piece of complacency has potentially screwed my printer?

Cheers

2

Yikes!!

I don’t know the full extent of “damage” without examining the printer myself, but from what you describe, it sounds like you may have a chunk of paper towel still wedged under the head or surrounding area (?) I have a few questions and suggestions:

Did you leave the print head resting on the paper towel for a period of time to “soak”, or was the paper towel there briefly while cleaning the bottom of the head, as per our print head cleaning instructions?
Did the paper towel get jammed up when the print head moved after turning the printer on?
If so, did it come out in pieces, and possibly not all come out?
Have you checked the cartridges to check the physical ink levels?
If the print head was resting on the paper towel for a while, and was soaked with ink, it may have wicked ink out of the carts by touching the print head, so you may have some empty carts, which will need to be refilled.

I would:

  1. Check closely for any jammed paper towel
  2. Gently clean the bottom of the print head to try to clean it and remove any pieces that may still be stuck there. Our cleaning instructions and videos can be found here: http://www.inkjetmall.com/tech/content.php?133-Printer-Cleaning-and-Preventative-Maintenance
  3. If the printer makes horrible/strange noises, and/or the print head bucks while moving back and forth at start up, then I would suggest having a technician fix it for you.

Best regards~ Dana

3

Hi Dana, thanks for the reply. Hopefully I acted quick enough. I wasn’t leaving the towel there to soak as I’ve seen in a few suggestions. Although I have done so since to remedy the ‘situation’. The towel came out in one piece, although saturated in ink, not in shreds so imagining there are no fragments jammed underneath. Understandably this drained a significant bit of ink but I can deal with that as I was hoping to start from scratch again by removing all the carts and purging the heads with cleaning fluid. The printer is still behaving as usual, nothing demonic, hopefully everything will be ok. Was just concerned with how delicate the underside of the head is and how much punishment it can take I guess! Learns me for cleaning a printer at 3am after a few brews. Thanks!

4

Ok, it sounds like there is hope! Keep me posted :slight_smile:

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Hi Dana, I have fresh inks and am about to test the printer again. One question I have though.

When purging the nozzles with Piezoflush solution is a a bad thing to see the solution forced up and out of another nozzle that isn’t the one you are flushing?

I should mention there are no carts currently installed

Cheers

6

Yes, that’s a bad sign… I replied with more details on your other post about this.