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You should be able to remove the heads and soak them in some cleaning stuff (lots of google hits on what to do and how to do it). I also wrote this article:
Keep Your InkJet Print Head Clean[^]
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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Hardware problem I think - even if you are printing white space it's spraying a fine cyan background splatter. At a guess the cyan channel is getting a low induced or leaked voltage from the others and it's enough to cause nano-droplet ejection.
It's an Epson, so it's a shared wall piezo channel for each head and droplet, and they can get weird when they start to fail - I used to design industrial inkjet printers using SW PZT and they are funny little buggers.
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640
Never throw anything away, Griff
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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I used to be annoyed at HP for having the heads built into the cartridge. I refill* them and they last a good long time, but none the less, it's a lot of money for two-fingers of ink.
So I hand one with cheap cartridges (Brother) and a built-in head. Great - until the head died. Then I discovered how much it cost to replace . . . HP isn't so bad, after all.
I do the 90% isopropyl alcohol to clean them if they get a bit lame from lack-of-use, but buy and large, it works out even, either way (and probably designed to, maybe include laserjets in that equation, as well).
Almost all my personal printing is done to a .pdf file - harder to lose/spill coffee on. Never out of ink.
* Mrs. Wife thought it would make a good xerox machine. Filling black, myself, cost about $US 1.50 and that made it pretty thrifty - although those days have thankfully passed.
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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Wow! That article you wrote was back in 1809, oh sorry, 2009. 
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i switched to laser many years ago when I figured the reason inkjets were so cheap is because the cartridges were so expensive and as you say if you don't use them very often they are a PITA.
I may not be that good looking, or athletic, or funny, or talented, or smart
I forgot where I was going with this but I do know I love bacon!
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OriginalGriff wrote: at the rate I print
That's what kids for - keeping the printer on its toes...
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge". Stephen Hawking, 1942- 2018
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Kornfeld Eliyahu Peter wrote: That's what kids for - keeping the printer on its toes...
Haha! That's actually very true. When the kids were young they printed way too much. 
But the printer always worked.
Now, printer is used about twice a year and doesn't work. 
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My office "upgraded" to a new combo colour office laser/fax/scanner/coffee maker - ok maybe no coffee, but it seemed to do everything.
Anyway, they were literally about to throw the old HP 2600n colour laser away! I said, "Can I have it?" and they were only too pleased to be rid of it. They even gave me a couple of replacement cartridges (yellow and magenta) that were lying around on top of a cupboard for the last two or three years.
This was three years ago and it is still going strong. Fast, clear printing at 600dpi, strong, well saturated colour when I want it, wonderfully crisp black text. It will print on almost any kind of paper and I have had only one paper-jam in those three plus years. For home users with minimal printing to do it is great - it doesn't dry up, there are no heads to clean and I only just put the replacement yellow cartridge in a month ago.
It powers itself down on standby - for days on end sometimes - and whips back up and is ready to print in just a few seconds when I need it. It just sits, eagerly, on the network and my whole household use it for very occasional printing. A heavy electrical user, it isn't. Maybe if it was printing all day I would notice it, but the way I am using it, nah!
My three ink-jet printers are rotting on a shelf in the basement (I never throw anything away) and are probably all dried up and useless by now. 
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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That's what I figured. Toner may be expensive, but not when you add up the wasted expensive photo paper and dried up cartridges I got through.
So I go to print the 2018 Christmas card sample for Herself's approval and ... it's missing green on the tree, and looks total cr@p.
Wednesday. New one arriving Wednesday.
But ... bugger it I'll need a new scanner when I bin the printer. That'll wait til the new year, I don't need it right now.
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640
Never throw anything away, Griff
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Don't bin the printer - just use it as a dedicated scanner.
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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Forogar wrote: just use it as a dedicated scanner.
I do it
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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Inkjet printers are probably still cheaper to run than colour laser printers though.
The toner cartridges were very expensive last time I looked. The ones that come with the printer are only partially filled with toner so beware of that.
My HP all-in-one OfficeJet 7500 has been good but I'm sure it does use more ink cleaning the heads than actually ends up on the paper.
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Took your advice some time back when I had the same issues Cannon Colour Laser 390, just find the right page and when it wants a replacement imaging cartridge you can fool it with a 10K resistor and keep using the same one! Cheap!
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Be grateful you're not working on one of mine: Kodak Prosper 6000[^]. Full color front/back at 600x600 resolution, printing 17 feet of paper per second. Performing a printhead clean can use over a liter of ink.
Of course, our printheads are a wee bit more expensive than those in your desktop inkjet.
Software Zen: delete this;
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Yep, same here. bought a cheap samsung laser colourjet ( C430W ) about a year ago and used it a few times since then. It always works straight of the bat no matter how long it has been since I used it last time. Best investment ever.
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Hah! You and Rick both bought ... the one I just ordered!
But I've just realised that all my special papers (210, 220, 255 gsm, in photo glossy / matte, and gloss-matte double sided, plus my Avery label sheets) are inkjet coated ... and I need to get new papers. Sod it!
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640
Never throw anything away, Griff
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Ahhh, no problems there because I have nothing but plain vanilla A4 printing/copier paper. I rarely print anything on special paper, I usually watch photographs on my 60" Sharp television, another really good investment.
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I mostly use photo card to do custom Birthday / Christmas / Get well soon cards, instead of buying mass produced crap that shows no real care or interest in the other person.
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640
Never throw anything away, Griff
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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In that case you will do very well with the CW430 once you get your new paper. I have only done a few trial prints on plain vanilla paper and was quite impressed with the quality of those prints. Maybe not as good as a high quality inkjet printer but still pretty good.
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Hah! You and fd9370 both bought ... the one I just ordered!
But I've just realised that all my special papers (210, 220, 255 gsm, in photo glossy / matte, and gloss-matte double sided, plus my Avery label sheets) are inkjet coated ... and I need to get new papers. Sod it!
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640
Never throw anything away, Griff
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Yep, I made the mistake to use inkjet photo paper in my brand new laser printer once, it seemed unrepairable damage had been done, but amazingly after a couple of prints everything was fine again !
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Yeah, inkjet printers were previously a constant source of annoyance for me. Some were simply DOA. With the others, I seldom printed and was still (somehow) forever running out of ink.
I abandoned inkjets about four years back in favor of a color laser printer from Brother. It was one of the best decisions I ever made.
Since changing, I've never have any problems and, four years later, only the black toner is noticeably depleted. Even it still has about 25% left!
Way back, when inkjets first came out, I had a nice HP model. It seemed to work fine.
Each brand and model I've purchased since has gotten progressively worse, with cheaper and cheaper build qualities. In my opinion, they've become scam products solely designed to make you endlessly purchase ink.
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I swore off inkjets years ago, but made a special case last year when I came across one for $100 that could print directly on CD/DVD (none of those lousy stickers). It lasted me long enough that I've just now ordered a ridiculous number of spare cartridges from China for $20 or so. Won't be a big loss if they turn out to be crap.
As for color laser - I bought mine for $100 about 5 years ago, and still haven't run out of toner. A co-worker bought 3 at the same time - he figured it's cheaper to buy spare printers, run through the toner, and then ebay them as is.
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