I hear from a lot of photographers who get frustrated with the relatively high incidence of nozzle clogging on most photo inkjet printers that use pigmented inks. I’ll admit I was a bit nervous when I decided to fire up my Epson Stylus Photo R2400 printer, which I haven’t used for printing in several years. Literally.I’m happy to report the experience went exceedingly well.
I actually considered getting rid of the printer, on the assumption that after sitting unused for so long the nozzles would be so clogged that I wouldn’t be able to bring the printer back to life. But I decided to give it a shot, if for no other reason than to see if it was possible.I ordered a complete set of new inks, in part because the existing inks would have most certainly settled to the point of being problematic and in part because I figured fresh inks would be more likely to help clear the clog (there anti-coagulants in the inks for this purpose).When the inks arrived yesterday afternoon I loaded them up into the printer, and ran a nozzle cleaning. The nozzle check print wasn’t exactly pretty, though several of the inks showed no clogs at all, which was a surprise.I ran the nozzle cleaning several times, printing the nozzle check print after each cleaning cycle to check the progress. After several cycles only the cyan ink showed there were still any clogs, so as I always recommend in this circumstance I let the printer sit overnight.This morning I ran the nozzle cleaning again, printed the nozzle check print, and was delighted (and surprised) to see the pattern looked perfect.I immediately opened one of my new favorite photos, and went through my standard “output workflow” to prepare it for printing. I sent it to the previously-in-mothballs printer, and a beautiful print emerged. A printer that had literally not been turned on for several years was back in action, producing great prints again.
Printer Revival
This is reassuring news. I have an Epson printer that has been stored for about a year. Now it is needed again and I was worried about clogged nozzles. I will follow your suggestions about new ink cartridges and letting it sit over night if a few nozzle clean cycles don’t clear everything up. Thanks.
A set of new ink cartridges for my Epson 3800 costs over $350. Fortunately after a three years of use, I only had an ink clogging problem once, and the normal head cleaning routine of the printer solved it. BTW, I highly recommend this site for great printer covers! http://www.digitaldeckcovers.com
She has my template for the 3800 but will custom make you a cover for the same price.
i had a similar situation with an epson 1280 i had not used in about 8 years. Before i discarded it, I figured I’d try it. Bought new cartridges and it fired right up, with beautiful prints. I guess Epson builds them well.
The 2400 is a great printer, as far as I’m concerned. I have not had one clogging problem. The 2400 is sometimes left unused for a couple of months at a time. No problems.
I am throwing in the towel on any Epson pigment inkjet. Have an Stylus Photo R800 that worked well over a 3 year span (went through about 60 color cartridges). Then a year ago, didn’t print for 5 weeks and an inkjet test showed 5 of the 7 inks with clogged jets. Did a number of cleaning cycles and used over third of each cartridge to get all but the blue ink unclogged. The blue clog got worse and worse (based on printed pattern test) even though I was turning on the printer at least once a week (using ink during the auto cleaning. Tried a series of cleaning cycles again; wasted a lot of ink (should be able to do the cleaning on one color if that is all that is clogged) and did not unclog. My prints all have beautiful pinstripe blue skies and backgrounds. Thinking of replacing with a Canon PIXMA Pro9000 Mark II.