Avoiding clogged printheads

[Derek Smith]

My last three inkjet printers have suffered from clogged printheads, despite the last two only using OE cartridges. I've cleaned them with chemicals and this does not seem to last long.

I know that some printers have the printheads in the cartridges but, despite being told that Cannon printers go this way, my Pixma begged to differ.

I only print the occasional colour image and use the printer less than once a week, mainly for invoices and such. I might go a month between using it.

I'd like to know what current printers have the printhead in the cartridge - searching on the internet come up with confusing results. Other options include advice on ways of ensuring that my nozzles function as intended, or cheap, replaceable printheads.

I obviously don't want to spend a fortune as I am an infrequent user. I'd prefer one with a built-in scanner, purely for space reasons. I'm not happy with buying a cheap one, only to have to discard it after 18mnts or so. It is such a waste.

Derek

[anonymous-user]

I went through all this, and bought a colour laser. Buy right and the print cost is tiny as well

[InitialDave]

RogerDodger said:

I went through all this, and bought a colour laser. Buy right and the print cost is tiny as well

Same here.

[Derek Smith]

Thanks for the replies. I nearly had to wait for them though.

Any recommendations?

[InitialDave]

Mine is a Brother printer, they seem to have a decent reputation, and it's been fine for me. I didn't get a model with a scanner, though, so myvspecific one is not really what you need.

[Derek Smith]

InitialDave said:

Mine is a Brother printer, they seem to have a decent reputation, and it's been fine for me. I didn't get a model with a scanner, though, so myvspecific one is not really what you need.

Thanks for that. I've got a decent quality scanner, but desktop space in my office is limited.

[C0ffin D0dger]

That's the thing with inkjets, need fairly regular use, and not just black and white, to stop the residual ink drying out and clogging the print heads. In my experience once that has happened you are past the point of no return. Mine now gets used at least once a week by either the kids or my missus for her job so it doesn't clog.

[Derek Smith]

C0ffin D0dger said:

That's the thing with inkjets, need fairly regular use, and not just black and white, to stop the residual ink drying out and clogging the print heads. In my experience once that has happened you are past the point of no return. Mine now gets used at least once a week by either the kids or my missus for her job so it doesn't clog.

I emailed a mate and he's just come up with two options. He says he switches on his printer three times a week and this seems to keep the nozzles free. I've got an Epson XP and he reckoned I could get a brand new print head by buying a £27 model in Rymans, removing the printhead and putting it in mine.

There's a certain twisted logic to that.

[Mr Pointy]

Derek Smith said:

Thanks for the replies. I nearly had to wait for them though.

Any recommendations?

If you're prepared to change to a laser I suggest you put up another post with a different title as may get more responses. I'd avoid Lexmark & maybe HP as there are fewer/no non-OEM compatible toners available - look at Samsung & Brother. Lasers don't clog but I found that if you are stuck with OEM toners it's actually chepaer to ditch the printer & buy a new one, which is horrendously wasteful.

[sgrimshaw]

Derek Smith said:

Any recommendations?

Yes, for colour lasers you get a big bang for your buck with Lexmark:

https://www.printerland.co.uk/printers/lexmark/las...

Personally, I'd go for the 500 series, the current model number is 517

If you want multifunction, then this:

https://www.printerland.co.uk/product/lexmark-cx51...

or is just printer then this:

https://www.printerland.co.uk/product/lexmark-cs51...

Please note, the cashback is not included in the price so you can take that off again.

By the time you need to replace the toners, there will be compatible ones available.

The 500 series ship with reasonable size toners not starter ones.

Check dimensions of whatever printer you are interested in ..... Colour Lasers are not the most compact of devices

[sgrimshaw]

Mr Pointy said:

I'd avoid Lexmark & maybe HP as there are fewer/no non-OEM compatible toners available

Compatible toners are available for Lexmark, they just take a while to come to market after the release of a new model of cartridge.

[Mr Pointy]

The Lexmark was exactly the one I took to the tip as they chipped to cartridges & compatibles were not available.

[Sheepshanks]

C0ffin D0dger said:

That's the thing with inkjets, need fairly regular use, and not just black and white, to stop the residual ink drying out and clogging the print heads. In my experience once that has happened you are past the point of no return. Mine now gets used at least once a week by either the kids or my missus for her job so it doesn't clog.

My HP one does a self clean routine - something like once a week. The cartridges are many years old but it still works on demand.

If you turn it off completely so the self-cleaning can't work, then you have issues.

[sgrimshaw]

Mr Pointy said:

The Lexmark was exactly the one I took to the tip as they chipped to cartridges & compatibles were not available.

Exact same one?

£70 would get you a full set of low capacity (admittedly) toners

https://www.printerland.co.uk/product/lexmark-cs41...

Mine is a CS510 which is the previous model, which came with 6K black and 4K colour toners. By the time I needed the first replacement compatibles were available, still are, around £200 for a full set of High Capacity ones.

[eltawater]

Had no end of problems with epsons as they took six cartridges and the print heads were part of the printer . Attempts to run the cleaning procedure just used up all the valuable ink

Switched to £35 hp over 5 years ago and on the rare occasion we do have a clogging problem, we just change the cartridge as that's where the head is. We print 1-2 pages a week max, sometimes not even a month.

[anonymous-user]

Just research which colour lasers can use aftermarket toner/cartridges/chips. This is where you save the money. I'm using an OKI ES6410. A huge office laser - bought off Ebay for £60 delivered with new drums etc. Bought toner chips form China for a few quid. Can refil my cartridges for a few quid. Cartidges last at least a year for me, and I'm a heavy user.

It's all about being able to refill non-oem.

[Flibble]

sgrimshaw said:

Exact same one?

£70 would get you a full set of low capacity (admittedly) toners

https://www.printerland.co.uk/product/lexmark-cs41...

Mine is a CS510 which is the previous model, which came with 6K black and 4K colour toners. By the time I needed the first replacement compatibles were available, still are, around £200 for a full set of High Capacity ones.

£200 for non OEM toner? Crikey. My B&W Samsung costs about a tenner for a new toner, I assumed colour would be 4 times more not 20!

[Noyzboy]

eltawater said:

Had no end of problems with epsons as they took six cartridges and the print heads were part of the printer . Attempts to run the cleaning procedure just used up all the valuable ink

Switched to £35 hp over 5 years ago and on the rare occasion we do have a clogging problem, we just change the cartridge as that's where the head is. We print 1-2 pages a week max, sometimes not even a month.

My Epson inkjet stopped running after the print counter exceeded some Epson defined number and said it needed a service, which it did not. I could have downloaded some eastern European software to reset the counter, but was very apprehensive about what unwelcome malicious software might come with it. Of course a service exceeded the cost of a new printer so the printer was in the bin and Epson added to the “never again” blacklist
I think that running a lot of cleaning cycles on my Epson may have triggered its hissy fit

[anonymous-user]

I paid around £110 for a full set (4) toner cartidges.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Toners-for-Oki-ES6410-N...f:0

A year ago... and I now have the chips so I can refill them with toner when they run out. Bear in mind these are high cap business cartridges, 8000 pages black, 6000 pages colour.

The grreat thing about office printers is often people (staff!) will flog the toner and drums on ebay cheap - I have a full set of spare drums and toner carts :-) all bought for small money (around £15 a drum)

[sgrimshaw]

Flibble said:

£200 for non OEM toner? Crikey. My B&W Samsung costs about a tenner for a new toner, I assumed colour would be 4 times more not 20!

A few years back I had a Samsung totally ruined by a cheap OEM so I've learned the hard way not to buy too cheap.

For my B&W Samsung a decent high capacity OEM black toner is around £60, given my colour laser has four toners £200 for the set of high capacity ones is a good deal in my book.