Ink in your printer head may occasionally dry out if you don’t use it frequently, which might cause blockage. It may also be time to clean your printhead if you start to notice lines, streaks, or bands on your printouts, or if some areas of your document have lighter prints on them.
Your printer’s change cartridge signal can be activated by a blocked printhead, or ink might simply not be able to reach the page. Maintaining your printer to avoid blockages is simple, but cleaning your printer’s head may be nasty and time-consuming. The paper towel approach is a common solution for a clogged print head:
Paper Towel Method
Your printer utilises ink cartridges with an integrated printhead if it only uses two cartridges—black and tricolour.
The paper towel technique can only be used with printers that utilise ink cartridges with an integrated printhead.
The HP 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, and 67 ink cartridges as well as the Canon PG243, CL-244, PG-245, PG-245XL, CL-246, 246XL, PG-260XL, and CL-261XL ink cartridges are a few common ink cartridges that may be used with the paper towel technique.
Steps:
You’ll need to have both a moist paper towel and a dry paper towel on hand in order to use the paper towel approach.
The printhead side down of the cartridge should be blotted onto the warm, wet paper towel. The printhead, which is often a gold or copper strip, is found on the end of the cartridge where the ink emerges.
Several times, tap the cartridge down. Repeat the procedure of sliding the cartridge onto the paper towel until you see firm ink lines on the towel. If using a multicoloured cartridge, keep going until all three colours are visible on the paper towel.
Hold the cartridge on the dry paper towel for 30 to 60 seconds or until you can clearly see ink on the moist paper towel. This procedure removes any dried ink that could be impeding the production of a high-quality print.
Reinstall the cartridge in the printer after finishing, then print a test page.
This usually performs the job fairly well. If not, proceed a second time. If the second attempt is unsuccessful, try our next piece of advice: printhead cleaning!
Printhead Cleaning from the Printer Display Screen
The printhead is integrated within the printer if it uses individual colour cartridges, like the Epson® 702XL series does.
Microscopic dust particles, air bubbles, or dried ink are the most frequent causes of clogged printheads. You may get rid of extra or dried-up ink from the print nozzles by doing a printhead cleaning on your machine. This is a normal cleaning feature included in the printer’s software, even if the configuration may vary from printer to printer. Print a test page to verify that the blockage has been eliminated before printing a second page (sometimes two will do the trick).
If it doesn’t solve the problem, cease doing any more cleanings because they waste a lot of ink and typically don’t produce better outcomes than the initial one. In the video below below, we guide you through the procedure using an Epson Workforce Pro WF-3820 printer. The majority of printers follow similar procedures; to locate the cleaning procedure that will work for you, examine your user’s manual.
Check out the printhead cleaning instructions we’ve created for each printer manufacturer below for even more useful printhead cleaning advice.
“Non-Genuine” Cartridge Message
Your printer could occasionally explicitly tell you if you’re using an ink cartridge from a different manufacturer. This type of notice, which is particularly prevalent with HP printers, will appear on your screen and inform you that you are using a used, refilled, or counterfeit* cartridge but often won’t do much more than that. The majority of the time, third-party cartridges have chips implanted that prevent this warning from appearing, but if it does, you may quickly silence it by clicking “okay.” If not, think about taking out your cartridge to make sure the chip is clean, then reinstall, and give it another shot.
Simply wipe the gold contact chip gently with a lint-free cloth to clean it.
Brand New Cartridge Not Working
You could occasionally run upon a brand-new cartridge that causes you problems. Follow these instructions to see if they help if you recently installed a cartridge and an error message appears on your printer’s display:
Try putting your previous cartridge back into your device if you still have it on hand. Frequently, your printer may restart without a hitch, and you’ll discover that the previous cartridge still has ink in it! Once your printer has recognised the old cartridge, take it out and replace it with the new one. A short cartridge exchange might occasionally persuade your printer to accept the fresh cartridge.
Make sure you removed the protective seals by checking again. In order to keep the ink inside fresh, new cartridges are sealed at the ink nozzle. This seal is produced by some companies using a piece of tape with a tab, while other brands use a piece of plastic. Your printer can indicate a new cartridge as installed yet prevent ink from flowing if you attempt to instal it without removing the seal.
Verify vent. The vent on HP cartridges makes it possible for ink to flow easily. Ink may not be able to exit the cartridge if this vent is obstructed. You can use a pin to clear the vent if the orange pull tab on the top back of the cartridge has been removed.
Start a thorough cleaning cycle. The ink sitting in the printhead of a printer that has been idle for some time may dry out and clog. Any unwanted ink blockages will be cleared out and your ink flow will resume by running a prolonged cleaning cycle. A cleaning cycle can also aid in removing smudged or very faint impressions.
Replace the Cartridge / Low Ink Message
Even when you have adequate ink, your printer will occasionally notify you that you need to replace the cartridge or that the ink level is low. It’s possible that after installing a brand-new, fully-stocked compatible cartridge, your printer continues to recognise the old cartridge as being in place. There are a few ways you may get your printer to start printing once more:
re-start the cartridge counter. When you add a new cartridge, some printer models’ cartridge counts may need to be updated. For three seconds, press and hold either the “Cleaning” or “Load/Eject” button on Epson Stylus printers to reset the cartridge counter. If your model has the ability to reset the cartridge counter, check the owners handbook.
Turn off low ink notifications. You also have the choice of disabling your low ink notification. In order to achieve this goal, different operating systems and printer models may differ differently. Consult your owners handbook for more information.
On the desktop screen, perform a right-click and choose “All Apps.” Click the button to start your printer’s print software from there.
Choose one of the icons that says “Configuration,” “Tools,” or “Utilities” from the available selections. You can get to the Estimated Ink Levels application from here. Hopefully, this will automatically update your computer to the ink levels in your cartridges. If not, you may disable notifications by selecting “Do Not Show Me Low Ink Level Warnings” in the Advanced Settings.