How To Clean The Printhead On Epson Xp-440

Nigh Epson printers have a permanent printhead. A permanent printhead has improve quality and durability than a erstwhile-utilize printhead. Nevertheless, the permanent printhead becomes a major problem when it is clogged. For the owners of Epson printers, at that place may be a day that we find the printer prints in stripes. Virtually people will blame the poor print on 3rd political party cartridges, ink quality, ink type switching, and so on. Every bit an attempt to solve the problem, a person may switch dorsum to an Epson cartridge. If the new Epson cartridge fixes the problem, the person would conclude that he or she should stay with Epson. If a new Epson cartridge didn't set the problem, the person would conclude that the refilling process bankrupt the printer.

To understand why Epson printers are so easy to clog and why sometimes a new cartridge will solve the problem, we demand to sympathize the mechanisms behind clogging. There are three kinds of clogging:

Clogging caused by droppings, fibers, and other strange objects
Clogging caused past dried inks
Bottleneck caused by air bubbles

The air bubble is the about common clog. The bubble tin course when yous are switching to a new ink, changing a cartridge, or experiencing room temperature fluctuation. It can also occur due to no reason at all.

Let's explicate why Epson'due south cartridges seem less likely to clog than a refilled Epson cartridge. Epson cartridge has a born damper (Picture show). The damper forces ink to menstruum ane way only: from the cartridge to the damper then from the damper to the outside. For a new Epson cartridge, the damper should exist total of ink and thus less probable to have bubbling. However, most people use the cartridge until they see that a color runs out. By this time, the ink is depleted, and the damper is full of air. Once nosotros refill the cartridge, the air in the damper tin clog the printer. We recommend using a syringe to suck air from the cartridge ink outlet afterwards each refill. Consequently, we will remove the air bubbles from the damper.

Some other place that air bubbles tin form is inside the printhead. We volition take a closer look at where the cartridge feeds ink. At that place are small cone-shaped ink tubes (ink intake) on elevation of the printhead. When we modify the cartridge, nosotros may push some air into these intakes and create bubbles. This is why printers tend to clog right later a cartridge change.

To bargain with the air bubbles, many HP and Canon printers take built-in pumps. For example, an HP printer pumps air into an internal bladder, which squeezes ink out of the cartridge, and therefore flushes the air bubbling (or dirt) out of the printhead. On the contrary, Epson relies on 2 things: 1) an internal one-mode damper that makes ink menstruum 1-way simply. 2) a born cleaning function which uses an external waste pad to suck and wipe the printhead. Each built-in cleaning cycle volition remove some ink out of the cartridge and and so dump the ink on a waste product pad. However, the waste matter pad is poorly designed and ofttimes experiences overflowing. Once the inkpad overflows, ink volition remain on the printhead and dry. The dried ink will create more than clogging and make things worse. Thus, we practice not recommend doing more than three caput cleanings in a row.

We can illustrate the above scenario with an instance. Our printer is missing a color (clogged by air bubbling). We did 7-8 congenital-in cleanings continuously and got it to work correctly. The bubbles were sucked out with ink, and nosotros got back to regular printing. A mean solar day later, nosotros institute the printer was clogged again. Although the cartridge didn't accept whatsoever air bubbles, the printhead was clogged by dried ink.

If you search the discussion "Epson unclog" on YouTube, you tin can come across most people simulating HP's method. They inject fluid from the ink intake and collect waste matter ink with a paper towel underneath. Still, this is a footling bit of overkill for nearly clogs. Here at BCH, we perform this sequence, gradually increasing the effort and intensity of unclogging until a satisfactory result is reached.

Prevention

The best unclogging techniques are to get-go with prevention

Do non allow the ink get depleted. If nosotros let the ink to become exhausted, then both the cartridge and the printhead will be full of air. When nosotros refill a cartridge, we will apply a syringe to suck the air from a cartridge'southward outlet until nosotros see ink coming out. As well, we may add a drop (ane ml) of Wetter Solution to each 100 ml ink to foreclose it from drying

BCH Wetter Solution

Built-In Cleaning Function

Epson's cocky-cleaning is the virtually nether-estimated and misunderstood method. Really, Epson built a very powerful cleaning routine in the printer, only people don't know how to utilise it. Most people but run one or two cleanings and surrender. People worries that the cleaning will impairment the printhead. Epson has a counter, that if we run more than 5 cleanings in a row, the printer will display "the printhead is damaged" and prevents from further cleaning. Therefore, we volition never run more than than iii cleanings consecutively. We will run three cleanings, go to home screen (don't need to wait), and and then get to maintenance tab and do the adjacent batch of cleanings.

The following video shows how it is done, properly.

We will run the built-in "clean printhead" three times, then go to printer's home screen, then back to the maintenance screen and run 3 more times. Later on, we await 12 hours, and then run 6 more times (three+three). Nosotros usually repeat the procedure three times before giving up on this method. If the technique works, we will clean the ink pad to prevent ink from drying on the printhead.

How to clean waste material ink pads?

We will turn on the printer. The printer will unlock the printhead and let information technology motion freely. Before the printer locks the printhead once more, we will unplug the power cord. Thus, we tin can move the printhead away from its resting position. Then nosotros will be able to run into the exposed waste product ink pad. We volition employ a newspaper towel to suck up the excessive waste matter ink so power on the printer.

Positive Pressure - Cartridge

Slight positive pressure will launder out the air bubbles too. If we accept a refillable cartridge, we will unplug the refill hole. One time the top of a cartridge is open up to the air, there volition be slight pressure level to button the ink down and move air bubbling up. For refilled OEM cartridges, we will peel off the sealing tape and betrayal the drill pigsty. These methods create a piddling down pressure on the cartridge. Nosotros will leave the cartridge in the printer overnight. We volition cheque the upshot a twenty-four hour period afterward and run across if we demand to move on to the side by side step. Furthermore, we volition clean the waste ink pad afterwards.

Positive Pressure - Titration

We can also use ink tubes to generate positive pressure. This kit (click here) consists of 2 tubes. These 2 different diameter tubes (1 ft each) can be cutting and fastened to each other. If we have 4 colors, we volition cut each into 4 pieces, and so connect to each other. The smaller tube will be attached to the ink intake and we can add together cleaning solution to the larger tube. We then permit the world gravity to do the cleaning. The cleaning solution will gradually dissolve the clog and push button open the nozzles. Once we see the cleaning solution is gone, nosotros know the cleaning is completed. This video shows the procedure in action.

A less ambitious mode of flushing the printhead

Wet Towel Method

If we decide the clog is due to stale ink, nosotros can use a wet towel to soften the dried ink. We will unplug the printer while the printhead is unlocked, similar to the procedure in (ii). We will put a wet paper towel, soaked with hot water or cleaning solutions (LINK), in the middle of the printer. And so we will slide the printhead over the towel and let the printhead sit on top of the sail for a few hours.

Printhead Flushing - Syringe

If we make a more than rigorous endeavor, nosotros can remove the air bubbles and debris in the printhead past flushing it with liquid. We will accept a syringe, fill information technology with liquid, and push the fluid through the cone-shaped ink intake. Some ink intakes fit a syringe, and then we may not need special tools. A larger intake may demand a tube to connect with the syringe.

If your printer's ink intake are "nipples", y'all can use this syringe: Size-S Syringe.

This method will flood the waste matter ink pad. Consequently, we will put a dry paper towel in the printer and slide the printhead on peak of information technology, as in 4).

What liquid should we use?

Ink. The original ink is the well-nigh not-intrusive way. A "gold rule" in the ink industry says the dried ink must be able to be dissolved by the aforementioned ink. And so the best solution is to use the same kind of ink in the cartridge.

Ink Base. The ink base is the liquid for making the ink before calculation colorant. The ink base is a kind of ink without color. The ink base is less messy and non-intrusive to the printhead. BCH produces ii kinds of ink base of operations: dye base and paint base.

Warm water. Water is the cheapest solution. All the same, the printer cannot print on water, and we should flush it with a lilliputian ink subsequently.

Cleaning Solutions. Cleaning Solution is used for stubborn clogs. The cleaning solution can add actress button if other liquids accept failed.

Printhead Flushing - Cartridge

We tin also take a set of refillable cartridges and fill them with cleaning solutions. Some people sell these as "cleaning cartridges".

Professional Cleaning

If the printhead flushing is non working, we may take the printhead out and clean it. Nosotros start by searching "remove xxx printhead" on YouTube. After nosotros find a style to remove the printhead, we will take the printhead out.

First, we soak the printhead in cleaning solutions for a few hours. Then, we will use a high-pressure steamer to open up upward the nozzles and blow away debris. Finally, nosotros will employ an ultrasonic cleaner to remove bottleneck particles and stale ink.

This procedure should be done by professionals. We may lose a printhead this way. Every bit a reference, we have a link hither: