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21 Nov 2009

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	Eliminating Banding on Epson Printers

Solution This tip is somewhat generic, it was suggested for Epson printers but works on all the printers. Don't run more than 3 back to back cleaning cycles, it just makes things worse.

Epson printers have 3 durations of cleaning; short, medium and long. The short cleaning cycle occurs on the first and 4th cleaning cycle and on every one after that, until a print is made. This short cleaning cycle can knock out all the nozzles. In otherwords, if you do a bunch (8 or 10) cleaning cycles with out making a print, you may destroy your printer.

After 3 cleaning cycles, print a test pattern (MIS purge6.tif is a good one). Print it using 360 dpi, plain paper settings. Make at least one print. It may not be perfect, but this will reset the firmware in the printer so you can get the short, medium and long cleaning cycles again. It is the medium and long cleaning cycles that will get your printer back up and running again.

If you have done 6 cleaning cycle, two groups of 3, and the nozzles are not getting any better, give the printer a rest for at least 2 hours. This rest period will allow the small air bubbles in the ink to rise to the surface and get out of the nozzles.

After the rest period, try a few more cleaning cycles. If you are seeing the same exact nozzles missing each time, then you may have dried ink in the print head. This of course is not good. (See article on using Windex to clean print head.)

The newer Epson printers, like the C82 and 2200 are sensitive to too many cleaning cycles. For these printers only do 3 cleanings, then give them a 2 hour rest. If you run too many cleaning cycles, you may never get a good nozzle pattern.

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30 Mar 2004 02:39 PM