If you have an inkjet printer, you may not know that cleaning it is an imperative way to keep your unit printing.  Many don’t realize that their printer has a problem or needs cleaning until it’s too late. But doing preventative maintenance and cleaning can actually prolong the life of your printer.

Every once in awhile, your HP inkjet printer needs to be checked and cleaned.  If you don’t give it occasional check-ups, your printer could eventually need professional repair or even replacement.

Also, if you have lines appearing on your prints, the nozzles could be clogged, and in that case, you need to do a cleaning.  On your printer there is a utility that will perform a nozzle check.  A test pattern is printed that shows whether or not there are gaps or faint lines printing.  Both of these indicate that the nozzles must be cleaned, and this will even indicate which ink cartridge is clogged. 

If a nozzle is clogged, you should clean the printheads by running a cleaning cycle.  This should remove nozzle blockage.  After that, run the nozzle check again, because sometimes the cleaning needs to be run more than once.  Although some Canon printers have multiple modes to clean printheads, the normal mode is usually a good bet that will waste the least amount of Canon ink.

If your printing tests indicate that the colors are printing in the wrong place or that there is banding, the Brother inkjet printheads need to be realigned.  Run the alignment procedure, and if that also doesn’t solve your problem, the printer needs repaired. The best thing to do in this situation is to call the manufacturer and figure out the cost of repair versus the cost of buying a new unit altogether.

Though cleaning your printhead and nozzles may take a little of your free time, it is well worth it. In the end, wasting a little bit of time is much better than wasting a lot of money on a brand new unit.

Comments are closed.