84 Maintaining Your Printer
Cleaning the Print Head
If your printouts are unexpectedly light or faint, or dots or lines are missing from the image,
you may need to clean the print head. This unclogs the nozzles so they can deliver ink
properly. Print head cleaning uses ink, so clean it only if quality declines.
You can clean the print head either from the printer’s control panel or using your printer
software. To clean using the printer software, the printer must be connected directly to your
computer (not over a network); see your on-screen Reference Guide for details.
Caution: When you don’t turn on your printer for a long time, the print quality can
decline, so turn it on at least once a month to maintain good print quality.
Running the Head Cleaning Utility
Follow these steps to run the head cleaning utility from the printer’s control panel:
1. Make sure the printer is turned on but not printing, and the red
b error light is off. (If
the red light is flashing or on, you may need to replace the ink cartridge; see page 85 for
details.)
2. Use the button to highlight
Advanced Settings, then press the Select button.
3. Use the or button to highlight
Head Cleaning, then press Select.
4. To begin cleaning, press
Custom button 1.
While cleaning, the printer makes noise and you see a progress bar on the control panel
display. Cleaning takes about 30 seconds.
Caution: Do not turn off the printer or interrupt the cleaning process.
5. When the cleaning is done, run a nozzle check to confirm the print head nozzles are
clean.
Make sure letter-size plain paper is loaded in the printer, then press
Custom button 2.
The nozzle check pattern prints (see the next section for details).
6. If the pattern has gaps or missing dots, press
Custom button 1 to clean the print head
again.
If the nozzle check pattern looks correct, press
Custom button 2 to finish.
If you don’t see any improvement after cleaning three or four times, check the solutions
beginning on page 97. You can also turn the printer off and wait overnight—this allows
any dried ink to soften—and then try cleaning the print head again.
Pbasics.book Page 84 Wednesday, April 23, 2003 4:30 PM
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