Take Your Printer On Vacation
by Barry Shultz
A person wrote to me and expressed concerns about
leaving his inkjet printer unattended for 3 months.
While it may not be a problem he was correctly
concerned about what he might come back to. A
clogged print head. Which could result in a costly
repair.
Under normal circumstances an inkjet printer will
work fine if it has not been used for up to a week,
however, any time beyond that MAY cause problems. I
emphasize the word MAY because I have been told by
some people that they stored a printer in the closet
for over a year and it printed perfectly the first
time out. At the opposite end I have had people say
that if they don't use the printer at least every
couple of days that their print heads dry up,
resulting in a frustrating routine of deep head
cleanings and cartridge replacements.
Here is what I suggested Roy to do:
Ideally it would be great if somebody could run a
cleaning routine once a week on it but probably not
feasible in your case. If you remove the cartridges
it would just make things worse because air would
permeate the print heads and it's the heads you want
to protect, not the cartridges. I would just leave
the cartridges in and hope for the best.
Another alternative is to take the printer with you
and use the buttons on the front panel to manually
do a cleaning every so often.
If you can locate some cleaning cartridges on the
net, just install them and run a few head cleanings,
leave the cleaning cartridges in the printer then
turn it off and enjoy your trip. The cleaning fluid
will keep your print heads moist and ready to print
when you get back. Tape up your ink cartridges and
store them in an upright position, i.e., the normal
position they would be in if they were in your
printer.
While Roy's 3 month leave is probably the exception
rather than the norm it still raises the question of
what to do in his situation. He decided to do
nothing and hope for the best which was probably the
best choice.
About the Author
Barry Shultz is the author of Atlascopy News, and
President of Atlascopy, Inc. Atlascopy specialized
in affordable alternatives to the high cost of
printer supplies. Sign up for the Atlascopy
Newsletter and get 10% coupons every week in your
email.
http://atlascopy.com/signup_new.htm
Go to Atlascopy to save a bundle on your printer and
refilling supplies.
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