{"id":898,"date":"2009-12-30T21:15:27","date_gmt":"2009-12-31T05:15:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/2009\/12\/30\/epson-4800-clogged-nozzles\/"},"modified":"2018-09-09T19:23:01","modified_gmt":"2018-09-10T03:23:01","slug":"epson-4800-clogged-nozzles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/2009\/12\/30\/epson-4800-clogged-nozzles\/","title":{"rendered":"Epson 4800 Clogged Nozzles"},"content":{"rendered":"

A while back I wrote a post on the problems I have with my Epson 4800 nozzles clogging.\u00a0 I don\u2019t print on a regular basis so the printer will sit for days and weeks with nothing going on.\u00a0 (See Epson 4800 Tip<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

In the original post I talked about putting a damp sponge inside the print area to raise the humidity.\u00a0 It worked really well but then I was so excited that I did a lot of printing.<\/p>\n

But over the Christmas holiday several weeks went by without any printing. And the sponges dried out.\u00a0 So it was back to the same old dry conditions inside the printer.<\/p>\n

Last night I wanted to start printing again so I moistened the sponges.\u00a0 Then I ran a nozzle check and found the magenta was mostly clogged and the light cyan was totally clogged.<\/p>\n

I gave it 24 hours, hoping that the increased humidity would loosen things up.\u00a0 So, when I ran the nozzle check again today I was a bit disappointed to see that the magenta and light cyan were still very much clogged.\u00a0 I prepared myself to repeat the ordeal I have gone through so many times in the past.<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s where the magic started.\u00a0 I ran a head clean and then a nozzle check.\u00a0 I certainly didn\u2019t expect to see a good nozzle check.\u00a0 But one head clean did the trick!\u00a0 The nozzle check was perfect.\u00a0 That\u2019s unprecedented.\u00a0 I have a ton of printing to do and I\u2019m good to go!<\/p>\n

It\u2019s probably worth a few sentences to explain why clogging is a problem with the 4800 and the other Epson Stylus Pro printers.\u00a0 It\u2019s because they use\u00a0 pigmented inks.\u00a0 Most ink jet printers use dyes for the colors.\u00a0 Dyes are colored molecules that dissolve in the solvent.\u00a0 But pigments are ground up solids.\u00a0 They\u2019re very fine powders suspended in the solvents.\u00a0 So if the solvent evaporates from a nozzle there is a residue of pigment left behind.\u00a0 That\u2019s what clogs the nozzles.<\/p>\n

The big three printer makers \u2013 Epson, HP and Canon \u2013 are all working hard at resolving this problem and have varying solutions that I don\u2019t want to go into here.\u00a0 But if you have an older Epson like I do or possibly even a more recent model, this is a good tip to know.<\/p>\n

So any hesitation about this technique I may have had\u00a0 is dispelled.\u00a0 It really works.\u00a0 I can recommend it with a great deal of confidence \u2013 if you live in a dry area or your Epson sits for days or weeks on end without doing any printing, place a moistened sponge in the chamber with the print head and keep it moist.\u00a0 It will really help in preventing the nozzles from clogging or, if they do clog, it will help getting then unclogged.<\/p>\n

It really works.<\/p>\n

To see more of my photographs click here.<\/a><\/p>\n

Join me on an upcoming workshop.<\/a><\/p>\n

Become a fan on Facebook and follow along.<\/a><\/p>\n

(5261)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A while back I wrote a post on the problems I have with my Epson 4800 nozzles clogging.\u00a0 I don\u2019t print on a regular basis so the printer will sit for days and weeks with nothing going on.\u00a0 (See Epson 4800 Tip.) In the original post I talked about putting a damp sponge inside the … Continue reading “Epson 4800 Clogged Nozzles”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[135,13,10],"class_list":["post-898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-how-to-articles","tag-epson","tag-photography","tag-ralph-nordstrom"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9Nl7-eu","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=898"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3947,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898\/revisions\/3947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}