Do you own an inkjet printer? Has the printhead ever clogged up on you, creating streaks or missing colors from your printing?

Clogs can be incredibly frustrating. Normally when you find out you have a clogged printhead, it’s because you’re right in the middle of printing something important.

It’s one of those problems that you never ask for. It just seems to throw itself in your lap without warning, and then taunts you in your efforts to fix it.

The printhead is the mechanism of your printer (or inkjet cartridge), where the ink actually comes out.

For the most part, printhead clogs can be normally be flushed out with a couple of “head cleaning” cycles. A head cleaning cycle is a built-in function of your printer. It’s a specialized routine meant to address this type of problem.

This “cleaning cycle” works by sending a strong ‘print signal’ to your printer, while at the same time drawing a small vacuum from underneath.

The combination of these two steps works in an attempt to suck out clogged ink from the printhead. From my experience, you’ll probably need to run between 3 and 5 cycles to fully clear a clog.

The location of the head cleaning cycle proceedure varies for each printer brand, so refer to your printer owner’s manual for specific instructions to find yours. Check the index first.

If you don’t have your owner’s manual anymore, you can check our your printer manufacturers website.  Most likely, they will have your printer manual online.

There are times however, when a few standard head cleaning routines don’t seem to solve the problem.  A stubborn printhead clog like this can be persistant enough to make you want to rip out your hair.

For times like these, you’ll need to pull out the big guns!

For stubborn inkjet printhead clogs, there are various cleaners out there specifically for this purpose.  These cleaners are formulated to disolve dried or “gummy” ink which may have accumulated from infrequent printer use, or even just a general build-up over time.

I personally brought an old printer “back from the dead” using a product called ‘Clog Buster’.  It was a printer I had purchased off of eBay which apparently hadn’t been used in awhile.  I spent a few hours trying to revive the printer, and ‘Clog Buster’ was the only thing that worked when nothing else did.

The only downside with using a cleaning product like this however, is that you usually don’t have it in your immediate possession when the clog hits.

Unless you have some already on hand, you’ll have to wait for it to be shipped to you.  In the meantime, your printing project will have to remain on pause until it arrives.

(But maybe I can help…)

The good news is that you MAY be able to solve the problem using some basic household products.  In fact, Windex glass cleaner can actually work well for dissolving dried ink.  What’s the secret ingredient?

Ammonia

Tough printhead clogs can usually be brought into submission by soaking the printhead in a solution of 50/50% ammonia and distilled water.

A important word of warning…  Ammonia is potent and powerful stuff.  When working with ammonia, always make sure you’ve got adequate ventilation, and avoid mixing it with other chemicals.  Very important.

So, if your printhead is located on the inkjet cartridge itself, you’ll want to soak the printhead in the 50/50 solution for an hour or two.

If the printhead unit is located inside your inkjet printer itself, then you’ll first need to remove the inkjet cartridges.

After those are removed, put some of the solution into the top of the printhead (directly into the nozzle holes) and let it sit a few hours.

Go ahead and put a little more into the printhead resting seat.  (This is the rubber rectangle part that seals off the printhead unit while the carriage is in it’s resting position.)

If this initial soaking doesn’t work, then repeat another time using 100% ammonia for up to one hour.  Afterward, make sure to rinse completely with distilled water.

If the clog doesn’t immediately clear, go ahead and let the printer sit overnight and try it again the next day.  Sometimes the clog will breakdown slowly and release later as the ammonia takes it’s toll.

Finally, for those of you wondering about the effectiveness of using alcohol to unclog cartridges and printhead — here’s a quick note…

Alcohol won’t work as well as ammonia, but may work better than a few cleaning cycles.  The downside is that alcohol may actually dry out the plastics and metals in the printhead.

This could actually increase the chances of clogging later on down the road.  So try to avoid alcohol if possible.

How To Clear A Stubborn Inkjet Printer Clog is a post from: Computer Spot

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Everybody wants to know about the correct inkjet cartridge for his or her printer, but what about printer paper?

Inkjet and laser printers can print on a variety of surfaces, including photo paper, labels, business cards, stickers, and t-shirt transfers.

One of the biggest advantages of laser printers is their ability to churn out quality prints on almost any paper.

However, the same does not apply to inkjet printers. Although most of your inkjet printing probably involves standard white papers, when it comes to this medium, you may have more options than you realise.

Inkjet Printer Paper

Although standard printer paper can do the job as well, your printouts will probably be better if you use paper specifically made for inkjet printers.

The quality of your printouts is affected by two major factors: brightness and absorption.

1. Brightness

When a type of paper is advertised as being brighter than average, it indicates that the surface of the paper is smoother than average. The smoothness of the page determines the amount of light reflected from its surface.

This factor also determines how bright your images appear on the page. The brighter or smoother the printer paper is, the better your printout will appear.

2. Absorption

In this case, if the printer paper absorbs less ink, your document will definitely look better. As the paper absorbs ink, tiny dots on the page may spread outside their borders.

This may cause the edges of text and images on the page to look fuzzy and soggy. To counteract this problem, quality printer papers are coated with a waxy substance that prevents the absorption of ink by the paper.

A well-coated paper allows for more precise and smoother printing. In general, most of the printers on the market print at a higher resolution on coated paper than on standard paper.

Branded Paper – To Buy or Not to Buy

It’s no secret that the big names in printers, such as HP, Canon, and Epson, offer a complete line of inks and papers.

Each company claims that you will get the best results when you use its products with its printers, and warns you to steer clear of products sold by other companies.

Generally speaking, they’re right. In the case of inkjet printers, especially, companies design printers, inks, and papers to work together to yield the best results.

If you use third-party paper with your inkjet printer from a big-name manufacturer, the ink may spread too far into the paper before drying, causing inaccurate colours, lower print resolution, and a dull finish. Plus, it is likely that the prints will fade faster.

The choice, after all, lies with you. Printing great photos from an inkjet printer is a tall order, requiring a perfect match between the ink, paper, and printer to work together; and the companies don’t make it easy on the consumer’s pocket.

You can reach the most economical solution through a little experimentation.

Alternatively, laser printers can print plain text documents or draft-quality graphics with equal ease, and you can stock up on your local office supply store’s bright white copy or laser paper to your heart’s content.

Getting Past the Jargon
To find out if the paper package on the shelf is right for your printer, simply read the fine print that usually lists out the compatible companies and models.

Moreover, if you are interested in high-quality photo printing, you can generally see if a particular paper makes the grade.

For example, some papers may have unusual descriptions such as “swellable” or “cotton rag.” Swellable paper is designed for high-quality photo printing—the coated surface actually swells as it absorbs ink.

Cotton rag is ideal for inkjets that use pigment-based inks; most low-cost inkjet printers, on the other hand, use dye-based ink, so you should steer clear of cotton rag in this instance.

High-quality paper also has a polymer coating—for both dye-based and pigment-based inks—that keeps the ink from spreading, and it protects the ink from fading over time.

However, coated paper can take a number of hours to completely dry your prints. Better quality paper may also be advertised as acid-free and lignin-free; these indicate that your paper is more likely to give you the best image quality and the best overall life span.

Checklist
It is important to remember that most branded photo printer paper from corporate names, including well-known ones, is only suitable for printing at 1440 and 2880 DPI.

Here is a simple checklist to help you when deciding the inkjet photo paper best suited to your needs.

1. Always check the DPI (Dots Per Inch) of the photo printer paper.

DPI is an indicator of how much ink the photo paper can absorb per inch on the page. Using low DPI photo paper for high-resolution printing will result in poor quality prints.

Usually, if the seller does not advertise the DPI of its inkjet photo paper and card, then it is likely that it is very low and therefore a lower grade paper.

2. Check that the photo paper is instant dry.

Cheaper photo paper may not be designed to dry instantaneously and can result in colour running or smudging while the ink is soaking into the paper. Once again, if the seller does not advertise this feature, then it is likely that it is absent.

3. Decide the weight of inkjet photo paper you need.

Although the weight of photo paper and card vary, the most common weights are between 120gsm to 280gsm.

If you are printing in bulk, then 120gsm is usually sufficient and cost effective. If you are printing photographs at home, then 160gsm to 200gsm should suffice. Buy glossy printer paper if you want shiny pictures, and matt paper if shine is not an issue for you.

As a general rule, bigger the weight is, thicker the photo paper or card will be.

How to Choose Printer Paper is a post from: Computer Spot

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If you aren’t into all of the new digital ways to share photos, you can always print them out.

Or, even if you have all of these cool digital photo sharing gadgets, you can’t really scrapbook a digital keychain.

The Canon Pixma Mini 320 Photo Printer is the perfect solution for your digital woes.

The first thing that I noticed about the printer is the sleek design. It looks like it could be made by Apple, because it has that sleek, shiny, white look happening.

It includes a viewing screen for viewing photos, which is a must. I have a printer without this, so we either have to create an SD card with only the photos that we want to print, and then print them all or guess what number corresponds to what photo. It’s not a fun game.

We frequently end up with a bunch of photos that we don’t want. Paper and ink are both very expensive, so seeing what you print beforehand is a good thing.

The Canon Pixma Mini 320 Photo Printer is the perfect for traveling or going to scrapbook parties. It is quite small, so you can bring it just about anywhere.

If you’re at a party, you can have the photos printed and handed out before the party is over. On vacation? This little gizmo will follow you there too. It includes a revolutionary feature – a handle! You can carry it just about anywhere.

Print from digital cameras, memory cards, or cell phones. With an optional bluetooth adapter, you can print high quality photos from just about anything in a matter of seconds.

It claims that it prints at a ’9600 x 2400 dpi’, but for this feature to be fully utilized, the print has to be connected to a computer.

Canon Pixma mini320 Compact Photo Inkjet Printer is a post from: Computer Spot

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