Unclogging My Printer ---- Again!

Once again, I'm unclogging my Epson R200. Don't get me wrong. It's a great great printer. However, it's also an old printer --- over 7 years old.

I use refillable ink cartridges and these do tend to clog. I suspect it is because of the age of the ink. Some of my refillable ink bottles are years old.

The black ink is especially old. If I recall right, it is at least 5 years old. I'm noticing that it is starting to stick to the sides of the bottle rather than appear to be fully liquid.

As odd as it sounds, I suspect that some of the clumping is due to water evaporation. Even though the bottles appears to be fully sealed, the water must be escaping the black ink refill bottle one molecule at a time.

So, now, once again, I'm experimenting with adding distilled water to my ink. My ink cartridges take about 10-12 milliliters of ink. I just added 3 milliliters of distilled water to the cartridge. Therefore, the cartridge is now at least 25 percent added distilled water.

That might sound like an alarming addition of water. However, inkjet ink is mostly water anyway. So adding enough water to the ink to make the ink 25 percent added distilled water may not be as outrageous as it sounds.

I have no idea whether or not this is going to work. One reason I do not know is that the symptoms are a little bit different this time. This time, the black test pattern prints just fine except that it is a little skewed

It is a little skewed in such a way as to make some of the stair steps extra long. As many as 3 stair steps on the test pattern are together as one level stair step. Clearly this is not right.

Is this because the black ink is clumping together? I'm not sure. It may take a while to find out. If the ink is gumming up the works, it may take a while to fully clear the problem.

In the meantime, my printed documents look okay. The problem shows up as a certain amount of subtle banding in the type face. It's perfectly readable but not perfect. I'm going to observe the type face in the coming month to see if this problem clears up.

I've extended the life of my Epson R200 printer far beyond the point where most people would have given up. Can I extend its life a bit further?

Update: September 23, 2013

Adding 3 milliliters of ink to my ink cartridge has worked better than I dared hope. I no longer see banding when I print documents. Before, the banding was quite noticeable.

Furthermore, the test pattern that I produce when I hold down the formfeed on my R200 and hit the power bottom to power up seems to be almost, but not quite, perfect. When I first glanced at it I thought it was perfect.

Later I notice a slight skew in lines 2 and 3 (line 1 being at the bottom of the pattern). The stair steps are almost perfect, but not quite.

Since the printer is printing more or less perfectly now, I could probably afford to add a milliliter of water, or so, each time I refill the ink cartridge. I can also add a milliliter of distilled water to the remaining open ink bottles.

In this way, I might be able to solve the problem at its source which is old ink that does not seem to be fully hydrated. That's the theory.

In actual practice, I don't care. Since my R200 is 8 years old, it seems to me it is at the end of its useful life. Therefore, destroying the printer in the hopes of fixing it is a reasonable option.

I'm certainly not recommending anyone else add distilled water to their ink cartridges. I'm just saying that, so far, it appears to have worked for me and I appear to be getting away with it.

Update: March 14, 2014

A miracle occurred this morning! For the very first time, a perfect black ink pattern printed when I powered on my printer while holding down the form feed button at the same time. All the little black stair steps are perfect!

As I reported above on September 23, 2013, they were almost perfect on that day, but not quite. Now, careful and judicious adding of distilled water to my black ink cartridge has restored black ink printing completely!

I had not dared hope that it would turn out this way. But it did. So, now I'm ready to make some assumptions.

I assume, based on my experience, that ink dries out over time. That is to say, microscopic amounts of water evaporate from the bottles as the bottles cannot truly be considered vacuum sealed. After all, they are cheap plastic bottles. How could they possibly form a perfect seal that stops all water evaporation, one molecule at a time?

I further assume that inkjet ink can be re-hydrated. It has taken me over a year to re-hydrate my black ink. Perhaps this is because I was doing it experimentally and incrementally so as to not overdo it.

For me, this is very empowering information. No longer do I have to throw out ink or an entire inkjet printer because the ink won't flow. Water is the universal solvent. It appears to me that it is definitely the universal solvent for inkjet ink.

Please be aware that you can almost certainly ruin your printer by adding too much water to the ink cartridges. The natural tendency of water is to flow out of ink cartridges because ink cartridges have a hole in the bottom.

Inkjet ink is viscous for a reason, I'm guessing. It's viscous to keep the ink from leaking out of the bottom. For this reason, I was very careful to add only little tiny bits of distilled water at a time.

Just because I added distilled water to my inkjet cartridges does not mean you have to do it too. As they say on TV, Don't try this at home!.

I was willing to sacrifice my whole printer on my distilled water experiment. The reason I was willing to do this is because my printer was not working and I was going to have to throw it out anyway. You may feel very differently about your printer, especially if it is working.

Also be aware the leaking water can cause electrical shorts that could lead to electrocution and possible death. Again, no one is recommending that you add water to your inkjet cartridges. Call your printer manufacturer's 800 number for better advice than I could possibly give. They know what they are talking about. I don't. I'm merely experimenting.

If in doubt, don't do it. Don't add distilled water to your inkjet cartridges. That's my best advice.

Update: April 16, 2014

I've been working on a formula for re-hydrating ink. The formula is this: Add 1 milliliter of distilled water for every 1/2 fluid ounce of ink.

This seems like a fairly conservative formula. Since my ink cartridges are about 12 milliliters, 1 milliliter is less than 10 percent of the total. I've added at least 1 milliliter of distilled water to my ink cartridges many times. In fact, I've added up to 3 milliliters of ink to an ink cartridge in order to get the ink flowing again.

1/2 fluid ounce is almost, but not quite, 15 milliliters. So, adding 1 milliliter per 1/2 fluid ounce is well under 10 percent dilution of the ink.

I have 3 black ink bottles, all of them with old ink. One of them is 2 fluid ounces, the next one is 4 fluid ounces and the third one is 16 fluid ounces (1 pint).

The following table can be used to hydrate these 3 ink bottles using the above formula:

Bottle Size	Add This Amount of Distilled Water
2 fluid ounces	4 milliliters
4 fluid ounces	8 milliliters
1 pint or 16 fluid ounces	32 milliliters

Recently, I more or less did exactly what the above table would suggest to my 3 bottles of black ink. Except that I made a mistake.

I miscalculated and added twice as much distilled water to my 2 fluid ounce bottle and my 4 fluid ounce bottle as I should have. However, I doubt my printer will suffer because of my mistake.

Doubling up on the amount of distilled water will probably not hurt the printer as the above table is, by design, a fairly conservative one.

Ed Abbott