How To Clean A Dirty Print Head

As time wears on, the quality of your reports, presentations and other documents may not look as sharp and clear as they did the first day you put new ink cartridges into the device. The quality of your prints considerably decrease as time goes on or the quality may not be great if you bring an inkjet printer back from the grave. You will most likely have to clean the printer's head to make sure you'll get the absolute best from the printer. There's no doubt that a clogged or dirty print head will keep ink from flowing from the cartridge to the paper. That's why a cleaning may be necessary to ensure your documents are printed at their best.

The only way to fix the problem is to learn about your device. You must learn where to find the print head and what the part actually does. When the document prints, droplets of ink leave from the cartridge through its nozzle and they go to the print head, which then puts the ink on a particular spot on the paper. As the device prints, these tiny ink droplets often get stuck near the opening of the print head. If these droplets have time to get dry, they often form a crusty layer around the print head's opening, causing the device to print disappointingly.
If this should happen, here are some things you can do to clean the dirty print head:

*Clean the Print Head Yourself
In order to do this, you must take out the ink cartridges from the printer. Then, take a cotton swab that you've dabbed in hot water or isopropyl alcohol and rub it around the print head. This will help loosen the crusty layer. There are some printers, like some made by Canon, that have removable print heads that makes it easy to access the print heads and nozzles. Just take great care if you use isopropyl alcohol to clean the print heads because this liquid can be damaging, especially if your printer has rubber gaskets. The gaskets can get dried out if you get isopropyl alcohol on them.
Now, if you have a print head that's removable, you must take out the cartridge from the head and take the print head out of the printer. Put isopropyl alcohol or some hot water into a bowl and set the printer head into that bowl. It must soak for an hour or more, or overnight should the printer head be extraordinarily dirty. Air dry the print head before reinstalling it into the printer and don't forget to run the cleaning function. That should remove any bits of dried ink that have loosened during the soak.

*Cleaning with Software
Your printer's manual will tell you the many ways for cleaning your print head. If you don't have it, you can visit the printer company's website and get a copy of the cleaning instructions.

The most important thing to keep in mind is to not panic. We all have to deal with printer problems eventually, but don't worry too much when you realize the problem doesn't just stem from an empty cartridge. If that's the case, just clean your print head in a way so that you can give your documents the print quality they deserve. So don't just pitch your printer when the documents start getting fuzzy. Just give it a good cleaning and get printing.