The Danger of Old Inkjet Ink

The danger of old inkjet ink is that it gums up your inkjet printer. It's taken me years to learn this lesson!

In November of 2015, I purchased new black and yellow inks. Prior to this my black and yellow inks were over 7 years old. I was constantly adding water to these 7-year-old inks to make them flow better. Stubborn guy that I am, I would not break down and buy new ink.

It has been 6 months (almost) since I purchased new black and yellow inks. Finally! My print heads are now clear and I get a perfect black ink pattern and a perfect yellow ink pattern. The perfect patterns for yellow and black have perfect stair-steps.

I may be stubborn, but when faced with overwhelming evidence, I have to change my mind! About an hour ago, I re-ordered all new ink for by Epson R200. I ordered from inksupply.com.

My 6 new ink colors only cost $22.95, including shipping. Why did it take me so long to order 6 new 2 oz ink bottles and throw out the old inks that are over 7 years old? Incredible stuborness. Dogged, persistent, unyielding stubborness.

Having now learned my lesson, I plan to go in the completely opposite direction: I will be reordering new inks every year. Inksupply.com recommends that you only keep your inks about a year. I'm finally ready to absorb the wisdom of that recommendation.

Why I would think that the people who actually formulate inkjet ink would not know what they are talking about is now hard for me to understand. What took me so long to come around to their point of view?

I can apply this lesson to many other areas of my life. If something is not working, be willing to pursue the most obvious solution. Try something new!

I'm humbled.

Ed Abbott

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