Preventive maintenance begins by buying a cleaning cartridge and use it regularly on your printer. A typical cleaning kit usually has a tube of ammonia that you can spray on the printer head and remove the dried ink.

The main method of preventing printer heads from getting clogged is to use the printer.   Don’t let the unit rot.  In fact, a lot of experts are saying that it is better to print one colorful page (example: a fast print, all black text settings) a week than to run a printer cleaning cycle because doing so uses a lot less ink. In general, using the printer prevents the ink in the printer cartridges to dry up.

Keeping the printer free from dirt and debris also helps a lot in preventing the printer heads from getting clogged. However, dirt and debris should never be cleaned from the printer using a vacuum cleaner because it can cause the circuitry of the printer to get fried. When that happens, you would have a bigger problem than simply dealing with clogged printer heads.

If you need to store your printer away, it would be best to take the printer cartridge out. Also, never touch the printer head with oily or dirty hands. Doing thus will leave skin oil on the printer head and add to the possibility of it getting clogged.

Clearing the Clogs

Most printers these days have systems built into them that allow them to clean their printer heads. This is done by initiating the printer’s cleaning cycles. Ideally, printer cleaning cycles must be started up once a week to prevent the printer head from getting clogged.

The downside to performing the printer cleaning cycles is that it wastes a lot of ink. We all know how expensive printer ink cartridges can get, and the printer cleaning cycles are not an efficient way to use printer ink.

There are other, ink-efficient ways to be able to clean printer heads that will prevent their clogging just as effectively. One such way is to brush the printer heads with Q-tips soaked in water. Sources vary on whether alcohol would be more effective than water, but in the opinion of some printer resources, alcohol can be harmful to printer heads and should thus be avoided.

The basic problem with inkjet inks are the conflicting requirements for a coloring agent that will stay on the surface and rapid dispersion of the carrier fluid.  Some manufacturers create ink based on a mixture of water, glycol and dyes. These inks may be inexpensive to manufacture, but are difficult to control on the paper surface (or other media).

The popular manufacturers create products that go together in completing the printing process.  The printer manufacturers discourage the use of just any third party inks.  The reason is that they can damage the print heads due to not being the same formulation as the manufacturers’ inks, cause leaks, and produce inferior-quality output.  In a shorter note, ink used inappropriately may reduce the quality life span of the printer.  Although third-party ink makers are definitely doing their best to create a perfect fit quality, they may never equally achieve, much more surpass, the quality of the ink from the same brand as the printer.