Purging Only One Color at a Time on a Six Color Printer

For a long time now, I've wanted to be able to purge one color at a time with my six color Epson Stylus Photo R200 printer. Why? Because sometimes a single color will stop working.

Here are full-page images of nothing but one color. To get the images to print properly, do the following:

1. Right click on the image
2. Observe the drop-down menu that appears
3. Choose to view the image in a new tab
4. Observe that the image now fills your browser window from top to bottom
5. Type Control-P to print the image.

The above steps work under Google Chrome. I've not tested other browsers. However, they should have something that is equivalent or nearly equivalent. There should be a way to do this in other browsers.

Here's black:

Here's cyan:

Here's light cyan:

Here's magenta:

Here's light magenta:

Here's yellow:

Now I have a way to purge an individual color with minimum impact on the other colors. Why do I care? Because this means I can fix one color without tinkering with all the rest.

As ink ages, it is likely that one color will act up and start clogging while all the others work fine. So, being able to purge one color at at time in order to get that color working again can be quite valuable.

Usually I have an 8-1/2 by 11 piece of paper that is now obsolete and I can now purge on top of. In effect, I'm using an old piece of paper as an ink blotter.

Another advantage of the one-color purge technique is that it is easy to tell when the color is working again. When all banding is gone and the color prints as a smooth consistency, the print head for that particular color is now clear.

There's always a way, isn't there? You just have to find out how.

Ed Abbott

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

Unclogging My Epson R200 Printer

I love my Epson Printer! It works so
well. Unfortunately, I abuse my printer
by not using it often enough.

Also, I don't change the ink often enough
and let the ink run dry. This is serious
neglect that can lead to my print heads
clogging.

Right now, I'm working on this very problem.
Here are some steps that give me a pattern
that tells me how my printer is behaving.
The pattern reveals all 6 inks separately:

1. Turn the printer off
2. Put fresh paper in the paper
   feed
3. Hold down the middle button, the
   form feed button on my R200
4. Continue to hold the form feed button
   down while you briefly hit the power button
   to power up
5. Keep holding the form feed button down
   until a pattern prints on your paper.
6. Hold the form feed button down continuously
   (don't let go!) until the printer spits out
   the paper
7. Look at the pattern that the printer printed
   on your clean sheet of paper

Here's a link to something similar. The link
is for an Epson printer model that has 7 inks.
My printer only has 6 ink colors.

However the principle is much the same.
Apparently what I just described above
is called a nozzle check pattern:

Checking the Print Head Nozzles

While this does not fix the printer clogging
problem, it does reveal which nozzles are
giving you a problem.

In the past, I've found that if I reseat the
ink cartridge that is going me a problem that
this will fix the problem.

I know that sounds weird. How can taking the
ink cartridge out of the printer and then putting
it back in fix anything? Well, it does. Sometimes
it does.

Here's something else that can help. Epson has
their manuals online. Here's the manual for
the R200. A nozzle clearing procedure
is described in the manual:

Epson Stylus Photo R200 Printer Basics

Here's an inkjet refill forum that gives you
a test pattern for a 6 ink color printer:

Inkjet Refill Forum

Here's the actual test pattern which has
black, cyan, light cyan, magenta, light
magenta, and yellow:

Six Color Printer Test Pattern

As of this writing, I've solved the problem
for some of my inks but not all of them. Cyan
is still having problems.

What will I try next? I understand that you
can buy clear inks to unclog a clogged printhead.
I may try that next. I assume that a clear ink
is a solvent of some kind. That's my best understanding.

Sounds like a clear ink may be a good idea. Here's
an ink retailer that sells clear ink:

InkSupply.com

Here's where InkSupply.com discusses this issue:

http://www.inksupply.com/epsonclean.cfm

Here's a discussion of purging:

Purging Desktop Printers

Here's a printer test pattern that I like better than
the one shown above:

Purging Test Pattern
6 color printers

I've printed the same above test pattern over and over
again. So far, it has not cleared my printer. I wonder.
Do I need nozzle cleaning fluid? Here is a 2 oz bottle:

2 Oounce Nozzle Cleaning Fluid

Here's the same thing in a pint bottle:

Pint of Nozzle Cleaning Fluid

While I'm at it, I should probably get new plugs for
my refillable cartridges:

BLACK PLUGS - 2200 EMPTY
CARTS - PACKAGE OF SEVEN PLUGS

Since the R200 has sponges in the ink cartridges, the
above plugs are the right ones. I've contacted technical
support at inksupply.com and they've confirmed this
for me.

I think I'll call InkSuppy.com on Monday and try to
figure out what to do. I'm a repeat customer. Love
their printer inks!

I have a theory as to why I'm in trouble with my printer
inks and why I'm seeing colors that are two light and
have lots of banding.

I think it is because my sponges are full of dry ink.
My refillable cartridges are very dry looking and are
not absorbing ink properly.

How do I know this? For one thing, the sponges are very
light colored compared to the ink. That is to say, the
sponge half of the cartridge is a much lighter than the
color side of the cartridge.

I just refilled my black ink cartridge. My black inch
cartridge accepted 4 more ounces of ink than my color
ink cartridges have been accepting. This tells me that
the ink is very dry in the sponges of my color ink
cartridges.

This is a phenonema that you often see in nature. When
the ground is very dry, the ground will not accept a
sudden downpour of water. Instead, the water runs off
causing flash flooding etc.

I think I'm getting the same sort of effect with my
sponges being too dry. They are not accepting more ink
because these sponges are full of dry ink.

Perhaps a solution to this problem is to come back
in a week and see if my sponges are now raady to accept
more ink.

Update: December 12, 2011

I'm writing exactly one month later
after having purchased new ink from
InkSupply.com and refliing my cartridges
with new ink.

My printer is working perfectly now! and
has been doing so for almost a whole month.

It seems that me letting the ink cartridges
dry out was the whole problem. I was not
using my printer as often as I might and
I was letting the ink cartridges run out of
ink to the point where they were bone dry.

Of the two problem -- using the printer seldom
and allowing the ink cartridges to run completely
out of ink --- I'd say the bigger problem is the
bone dry problem. Letting my ink cartridges run
out and sit there for quite some time bone dry
is a bad bad idea.

Having done this, I've learned a valuable lesson.
I don't think I'll ever let my cartridges run
completely out of ink again.

With my car, I never let the tank get below one
quarter full. I always go to the gas station
when I've got about a quarter tank of gas left
in the tank.

I think I'll use the same system with my ink
cartridges. As soon as they get to one quarter
full, I'll refill them.

Fortunately, Epson makes this easy. Each time
you print a document, the printer shows you just
how full the ink cartridges are. They even give
you a little indicator to indicate 1/4 full,
1/2 full, and 3/4 full. I love my Epson printer!

From this experience I've learned 2 lessons:

1. Don't let your ink cartridges completely empty
   of ink
2. If they do empty of ink, don't worry about it.
   Just refill them with ink and let the ink sit there
   day after day turning the ink solids to liquid ink.
   In my experience, it takes about 1 week for the
   printer to fully recover using this method.

The big lesson is patience. Be patient and the problem
solves itself.

It takes fresh ink and patience to solve the problem of
clogged print heads.

Update: February 21, 2012

Got out of bed this morning and tried the print the
above 3 images. I wanted to see if I could get
full magenta coverage on all 3 images.

I used the following steps to do so:

1. Load a fresh piece of paper in the
   printer
2. Click on the image
3. After you click on the image,
   the image should appear in full
   resolution in your browser
4. Right click on the full
   resolution image
5. Choose open image in new
   tab
6. type control-p to print the
   image
7. Make sure the radio button
   that gives you the option of
   color or black and
   white is set to color
8. In the bottom left corner of
   the screen, look for the words,
   Print using system dialog
9. Click on the words Print
   using system dialog
10. When the printer dialog comes
    up, choose preferences
11. Choose the best photo
    option in the dialog. The best
    photo is the top quality radio
    button of 5 radio buttons
12. Click ok
to actually print

I was able to print one and two
thirds images before the ink ran
out This tells me that I'm going
to have to try something new.

Should I just buy a new print cartridge
or should I try again? I'm not sure.

Ed Abbott