What Do I Need To Clean Epson PrintHead Nozzles That Are Blocked Or Clogged? | General | Forum

When your Epson printer starts printing faint or incomplete prints, then most probably its print head nozzles have clogged-up. This is a common problem with inkjet printers, which can be easily resolved if you know the right process and have all the necessary tools. However, most users end-up spending good amount of money on a service engineer to resolve this problem. To help all such users we have prepared this guide, in which we will describe the easiest way to clean Epson print head nozzles which are blocked or clogged.

Causes behind Print Head Clogging
Blocking or clogging of print head nozzles can happen due to drying of ink. Suppose, you got a low ink warning and instead of replacing the cartridge you kept using it, then whenever you will put-in the new cartridge you may find the nozzles have been blocked due to inactivity. In the same way, if your printer hasn’t been used for a long time, then the ink will dry up and cause clogging of print head nozzles.

Basically, clogging happens due to the inactivity of your print cartridge nozzles. Knowing this reason is important as it will allow you to avoid this problem in the future. Anyway, right now let’s focus on how to clean Epson print head nozzles which are blocked or clogged.

Clean Blocked Print Head Nozzles of Epson Ink Tank Printer
To complete this cleaning process you require a cleaning solution, syringe, silicon tube, plastic strip and paper towel. Once you have arranged everything, follow the steps given below.

To find out which nozzles are blocked you should print the nozzle test pattern. In this case, you can see that all the nozzles are blocked. So, we will describe the cleaning process for one nozzle, which can then be repeated for other nozzles.
take a test print out step 1
Open the upper-cover of your printer so that its print head compartment is visible.
open printer below part step 2
You will see the print head compartment on the right side connected to the ink tanks with four tubes.
print heas assembly step 3
Switch on the printer and disconnect the power cable when the print head has started to move towards the middle.
move the assebly step 4
Your print head compartment can be easily moved. Remove plastic cover to get access to the ink tubes.
detach the ink pipes step 5
Detach plastic tubes from the holder.
detach all the pipes from clip - step 6
Ink tubes are connected to a cartridge body. This cartridge body is installed in the ink head compartment with a retaining nose on its back. You can easily unhook the cartridge body from the compartment by pushing this retaining nose from behind by using a screw driver or your finger. Perform this step gently to avoid any damage to the cartridge body.
detach the color assebly one by one - step 7
Once all the cartridges are unhooked you can easily lift them out of the print head compartment.
take them out from the assebly - step 8
Now all four ink ports in the print head compartment are clearly visible.
you will see four nozelles - step 9
Take a plastic strip and paper towel and fold them in such a way that they can easily fit below the print head nozzle plate. Keep plastic below the paper towel.
take a paper towel - step 10
To protect the inside of the printer during the cleaning process you should put this combination of plastic strip and paper towel below the print head compartment.
put it beneath the print head assebly - step 11
Position the print head in the middle of the paper towel.
move the assebly - step 12
Connect the silicon tube with the syringe and fill syringe with the cleaning fluid.
take syringe - step 13
Connect the open end of the silicon tube with the ink port you want to clean.
put syringe pipe into nozole head - step 14
Now gently push the cleaning fluid so that it can flush the ink blocking the nozzle. You will clearly see the paper towel getting wet with cleaning fluid of the same color whose ink port it was attached to. This is a sign that the ink in the blocked nozzle is getting cleared.
push it gently - step 15
Once the syringe is empty. Detach the silicon tube from the ink port.
change the nozzle - step 16
Clean the inside of the compartment with a piece of paper.
clean the nozzle head - step 17
Remove the dirty paper towel and plastic strip.all blocked and clogged waiste will be come on the papaer towel - step 18
If you want to clean another ink port, then use new plastic strip and paper towel. Then, perform the steps from step 11 to step 18 again.
Reinstall the cartridges into the compartment.
put the cartridge back - step 20
Make sure that there is no twist in the ink tubes. Fix ink tubes in the retaining holder of the print head compartment.
clip the pipes properly - step 21
Attach plastic cover over the tubes.
Close the cover of the printer. Switch on the printer and print the nozzle test pattern.
print a test page - step 22

If you have performed all the steps properly the new test pattern should print without any mistakes as shown above. That’s it, this is how you clean blocked print head nozzles of Epson Ink Tank printers.

I hope this detailed guide will be helpful!
Mark Wilson