Any printer guys here?

[Tasmaniak]

Heres the long and the short of it. Have an All in One Lexmark Prospect 205.

A while ago it stopped printing in blue properly and the rest of colours including black are pretty poor... white lines through them all. Anyway... What I Know Is...

Blue cartridge is 1/2 full as are the others approx
If I pull the cartridge out and touch the pad on the bottom, it comes away with a perfect blue circle. I BELIEVE the cartridge is ok.
I have removed the print head and cleaned it with a non-alcoholic based cleaner. (Glasses cleaner to be exact.)
Deep clean has no effect
Print has the four colour blacks at the bottom, Black, Yellow, Cyan(problem colour) and Magenta
Prior to cleaning the print head, there was a few faint blue streaks in the blue square. After the print head clean there is more.

Anyone got any ideas?

 

[Tasmaniak]

Is it safe to use Isopropyl Alcohol on the printhead?

 

[FstStig]

Have you tried different paper (New ream), Isopropyl Spray will be fine to use to clean the print head. Make sure there hasn't been any ink spillage on any of the rollers as well.

 

[Tasmaniak]

yep tried different paper and no spillage anywhere. I have just cleaned with isopropyl and... nadda.

Would it hurt to stand the print head in a bath of Iso?

 

[FstStig]

Wouldn't hurt but I don't think it would make much difference. Does it get used often?

 

[FstStig]

Never mind ignore the above post. Try updating the printers firmware and see how that goes

Lexmark International, Inc. - Firmware Download

 

[Tasmaniak]

Been done and did that! lol, no joy.

 

[ephect]

What U need is, a syringe, rubber tube that will fit over the nozzle in the print head and some shelite. Fill syringe with shelite, add hose to syringe and nozzle, slowly feed the shelite thru the print head. This should clear it up. If U can remove the print head from the printer, its better because u can contain the mesa u may need to do this a couple times. But give it a shot printing blocks of colours in paint. One thing, don't let it it soak in it, it'll melt the plastic.

 

[mpower]

Lexmark printers are the devil.

I'd strongly recommend replacing it with almost anything else, preferably something that has the print head as part of the ink tank.

I'd also recommend grabbing a second cheap black only laser for printing you know just regular stuff, I like the little brother units they sell @ officeworks.

 

[PIR4TE]

^^ much like buying a fancy razor for less than the price of the refill pack, in the past couple of years I have bought several postscript (typesetting pre-print quality) colour laser copiers and dump them when one of the laser cartridges is empty.
See a brand new Brother high speed networkable two-sided colour office printer costs $199 at Officeworks, works out to 10¢ per full colour printed page impression - a fraction of the true ink jet cost plus you don't need any maintenance during the life of the cartridge.
It obviously comes with 4 x cartridges which have a replacement cost of $100 - $150 ea!
So as daft as it sounds to just chuck the whole thing away when the toner runs out (trust me the Scots blood in me makes it hard to bin the shiny wee hi-tech unit) that's the most economical high speed, high resolution option.
This is the one I use currently, double-sided printing, wifi (with AirPrint), power saving stuff and it just works.
Or you are welcome to any one of the few I have stacked ready to dump (only needs a toner cartridge) pickup Brisbane for free.
I reckon it's not worth your time messing bout with ink bottles when cost of goods are so low.