By Jack Dyck

Those of you with digital darkrooms may find this article useful.

Not everyone uses a commercial photofinisher for their digital images. Many people prefer printing at home for a variety of reasons - control and convenience being the primary ones for most.

For amateur and limited professional use, the choice is usually between various makes and models of inkjet/bubblejet printers.

One problem with inkjet and bubblejet printers is that they must be used occasionally to prevent ink from drying in the print-head nozzles. If this is not done routinely, it's possible to have nozzles which are blocked, possibly permanently.

Some brands of printers feature print-heads which are integrated into the ink cartridge. For these types, replacing the ink cartridge(s) will provide a fresh set of unblocked nozzles.

Epson photo printers - nominally the market leaders - don't work that way. For these printers, the nozzles are an integral part of the printer's carriage, and are intended for indefinite use over the life of many ink cartridges. For many of these models, the print heads are not a removable entity by the end user, making them difficult to clean if they become plugged.

To get to the point of this article's title then, I'm not going to tell you how to make your printer wireless, I'm just going to describe how I unplug my print-head's nozzles - after all the instructions in the manual fail to do the job. This is pretty simple, really, but Epson won't tell you how to do this.

Maybe I shouldn't either! What I'm about to describe is something that should be approached with caution; as far as I know, Epson doesn't condone this procedure, and it may void your warrantee. I didn't have the nerve to try this except that my warrantee had expired, and I was ready to try anything - to avoid taking my printer in for service.

In other words, do this at your own risk; if you break your printer, I won't buy you a new one - and if you void your warrantee - well, I warned you! Before you do this, follow all of your printer manufacturer's recommendations carefully. Proceed with the following instructions only if those recommended techniques fail.

My printer is an Epson Stylus Photo 1270. Treatment for other Epson printers - and possibly other brands - may be similar enough that this procedure is helpful.

In the normal non-printing state, the carriage remains locked on the right-hand side. You need to get it free in order to clean the nozzles.

In Epson printers (at least, for my Epson Stylus Photo 1270), you press a button hidden under the lid to move the carriage to the left so you can replace the ink cartridges. This is a necessary first step - even though there's no need to remove the ink cartridges.

The next step is to do something the manual specifically forbids; you must pull the printer's power plug out of the wall! This is necessary to avoid the printer's usual power-down sequence, wherein it will dutifully park and lock the carriage on the right.

Now that the power is off and the carriage isn't locked on the right, you can gently push the carriage to the center of the machine. (If it won't move, your printer is built differently from mine, and you'll have to try some other technique.)

Using scissors, prepare a paper towel:

Place one of the pointy ends of the rolled paper towel into the track which runs below the print heads. Ensure it sits flat on top of the track.

Carefully move the carriage over the paper towel spike. If you placed the paper towel carefully and patted it down, you'll see the tip of the spike on the other side of the carriage. If you didn't, the paper towel will jam under the print heads - if so, DO NOT FORCE the carriage; rearrange the paper towel spike and try again.

Now for the messy part; grab the paper towel carefully on each side of the carriage, and slowly pull it back and forth underneath the carriage. You may need to pull upwards a little so it contacts the print heads.

Did I mention the paper towel will be saturated with ink? I hope you weren't in your Sunday best when you tried this! And for a bonus, you'll have Technicolor fingers for a few days, too...

After you have rubbed the moist paper towel under the print-heads, you may want to repeat the procedure with fresh towels a few times, to maximize the contact time between the heads and the paper towels, and to wick away any excess ink.

When you are done, remove the paper towel and ensure there are no torn scraps in the track. Then, plug the printer's power cord in. The printer will go through a normal power-up routine (after relocating the carriage back to the parked position) and present itself as ready for printing.

Except, it's not really ready yet.

Use the Epson driver's utility to perform a head cleaning once, then a nozzle check. If the nozzle check passes, you are done. (If you don't know how to do these steps, you shouldn't be following this procedure!)

If the nozzle check doesn't pass, then print a small image on junk paper - a postcard will do, on used paper. All you're trying to do is ensure that all of the coloured inks are forced to flow. Don't worry about the quality of the image yet. Run the nozzle check once again. If some nozzles appear to remain blocked, you have 2 choices:

1. If you think the nozzles are still plugged, repeat the whole procedure with the paper towels, to give greater opportunity for the nozzles to unplug.
2. Alternately, you can try forcing the printer to pump excess ink through the nozzles. Follow the routine for replacing the ink cartridge(s) by pressing the button, removing the cartridges, re-installing them, and then allowing the printer to "charge" the nozzles as if it had actual fresh cartridges installed.

In future, there are only 2 things you need to do to avoid blocked nozzles:

1. Try to print a small photo image at least once every other week, and;
2. When shutting it down, make sure you use the printer's power button prior to switching off any power bars or unplugging the printer. Using the printer's power button allows it to clear the nozzles before parking the heads, minimizing the opportunity for blocked nozzles.

Happy printing!