Clogged nozzles – Brother printers

Brother printers have a built-in, permanent printhead. While this allows Brother to use a very high quality printhead, anyone who has replaced the printhead after warranty found out real quick that a new printhead costs more than a new printer!

Whether you use original Brother cartridges or compatible Brother cartridges, there WILLcome a day when a few or even many nozzles will be blocked and the cleaning cycles will not solve the problem. It is not whether it will happen, but most likely when.

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Symptoms:

You just put in a new cartridge and a few nozzles are missing. You run several cleanings, no improvement, or more times than not, the problem is worse … even more nozzles are missing or the whole color is gone! Don’t blame the cartridge, it is just a box of ink and unless the manufacturer has used the wrong ink (which is very unlikely these days) then you have just been introduced to the number 1 problem for Brother printer owners.

After 8 or 10 cleans, like a miracle, it starts to print properly … or you put in another new cartridge (possibly breaking down and actually buying an expensive, original Brother cartridge) and low and behold there it is printing perfectly! Unfortunately the next morning the problem is even worse than it was! How can this be? Now I’ve got to run several cleanings every time I want to print and sometimes even this doesn’t help. Now my ink cartridges last half as long. It’s just got to be poor quality cartridges?!

And don’t forget, 8 or 10 cleanings can use half the ink in the cartridge so you will definitely get fewer pages from a cartridge if you run many cleanings. Virtually all compatible cartridges contain at least as much ink as an original; in some cases more.

The above scenario can happen at any time, but it most often happens when changing a cartridge or if the printer has not been used for an extended period of time. If it takes you six months or more to go through a set of cartridges, your chances of the problem described above is several times more likely than those who use their printer daily.

Why does it Happen?:

Most people do not change their cartridge(s) when the low ink light comes on. Instead they wait until they can see that the black or a color has run out. At this point there is no longer ink in all of the nozzles. If the cartridge or a color is empty enough to tell by looking at the printout, then some or all of the nozzles are filled with air. Air in nozzles can quite effectively block ink flow.

To overcome this problem when a new cartridge is put in, your Brother printer will do a priming. As far as I can tell, the logic is, if the printer can suck enough ink through the printhead, then that should also remove any air in the nozzles. This usually works. Unfortunately it can sometimes suck out so much ink that the wipers start to smear the ink all over the printhead which in turn blocks the nozzles. The more cleanings you do, the more ink that gets smeared on the printheads and the worse it gets. You have now gone from a problem of air blocking the ink flow on a few nozzles to smeared ink blocking even more nozzles.

If you manage to get all nozzles printing after 6, 8, 10 or more cleanings your problems are probably not over. In fact, your problems are probably worse. That half cartridge of ink sucked out during the cleanings has to go somewhere. Unfortunately there is nowhere for the ink to go except dry on the printhead. Next day, after the ink has had plenty of time to dry, you’re lucky if you’ve got any ink on the paper when you print. How can new ink get through that thick layer of dried ink? Well, it can’t!

The only true solution is to remove all that dried ink from the printhead. This is easily done with most printers. You simply remove the cartridge/printhead assembly and give the nozzles a quick swipe with a damp paper towel. There goes your dried ink. If that doesn’t solve the problem, you can suck a small amount of ink out of the nozzles with a priming clip. That gets rid of any air and it only takes a couple seconds. Another quick swipe and all excess ink is removed. Easy when you can hold the printhead in your hand.

You probably know already that the Brother printheads are permanent and cannot be easily removed, therefore cleaning the excess ink off the printhead is not simply a matter of giving it a swipe with a damp paper towel.

So, before you blame the compatible cartridges for your Brother printer not printing properly, please realize that it is probably not the fault of the cartridge. It’s just a Brother and that’s the nature of the beast!

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Prevention:

 There are several ways to help prevent clogged nozzles in printheads.

NEVER, NEVER, NEVER RUN MORE THAN 3 CLEANING CYCLES!!!!

The printhead cleaning cycles on models of printers has consistently gotten longer with each new model introduced to the market. These longer cleaning cycles suck out more ink in an attempt to clear the clog. Unfortunately, after two or three cleaning cycles, excess amounts of ink is being smeared over the printhead and can actually block more or all of the nozzles. The more you clean, the more ink, the more smearing.

If after two cleanings the nozzles aren’t cleared, then print at least 10 full pages. If the nozzles don’t clear themselves within these 10 pages, then further cleanings will not solve your problem. You will have to manually clean the printheads. See several methods below.

ALWAYS TURN YOUR PRINTER OFF AT NIGHT

The printers do a “mini-cleaning cycle” when the printer is first turned on. This is to get the ink flowing through the printhead after it has been unused for a while. If you never turn the printer off, then these mini-cleaning cycles to not take place.

PRINT ON A REGULAR BASIS

You should print several, full color pages AT LEAST ONCE A WEEK! This will help keep the ink from drying out on the printhead or in the nozzles. Seldom used inkjet printers (all brands) cause more problems than those which are used on a daily basis. If it takes you 4, 6 or more months to use a set of cartridges, then an printer is certainly not the printer for you. Seriously consider a different brand or a laser printer if you only print black.

USE ONLY THE HIGHEST QUALITY CARTRIDGES!

The printheads in printers are a very precision made component. Many companies want you to believe that “one ink does all printers”. This is simply not possible. While this type of refill kit may work with many printers, owners simply should not take the risk. As models are introduced the ink changes. This is the reason printer manufacturers are continually introducing new inkjet cartridges when they introduce new printers. Higher resolutions and faster printing speeds require ink with very specific characteristics. You may have been able to get away with “one refill kit does all” back 5 years ago, that certainly isn’t the case today!

The few $$$ you save by buying cheap refill kits and compatible cartridges WILL come back and haunt you.

Methods to manually clean printheads:

We suggest you perform the suggested methods of manually cleaning the printheads in the order they are listed below. They are listed in order from the easiest to the more difficult. If the first method does not completely solve the problem, then go on to the next.

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Distilled water or printhead cleaner in sponge

Move printhead assembly to centre of printer:

 The goal here is to loosen and remove the dried ink that is on the printhead. The easiest way is to saturate the sponge mentioned above and then put the printhead over it for five or ten minutes. To do that, start a cleaning cycle. When the printhead moves to the left side, unplug the printer. You will now be able to move the printhead assembly back and forth freely. With a syringe or eyedropper, put as much Windex on the sponge as it will hold. Immediately move the printhead to the very left so that it is over the sponge. Let it sit there for 5 or 10 minutes. This should give the window cleaner time to soften up any dried ink that is on the printhead. In the meantime, take a look at the very right side. You will see a little black wiper blade made of soft rubber. Dampen a small spot on a paper towel with the window cleaner and gently clean the wiper blade. Repeat until you get no more ink off of it.

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Clean printhead with paper towels

 Fold paper towel and dampen:

 Be certain the printer is turned ‘off’. Tear a single sheet of paper towel in half. Fold the sheet in half several times until it is about 1/2 inch by whatever length the sheet started at. In other words, you want to fold it so it is long and skinny, not square. Start a cleaning cycle then unplug the printer when the printhead moves to the left, just like you did in the previous method of cleaning the nozzles. Open the cover of the printer. Along the path which the printhead assembly travels when printing, you will see a rubber roller which moves the paper. (this is like the paper roller in a typewriter). Put the paper towel on top of this rubber roller and use tape on each end to secure it. Put a few drops of printhead cleaner or distilled water near the middle of the paper towel.

 Move printhead assembly over the paper towel and let it rest on top of the damp portion of the paper towel.

We suggest letting the printhead sit over the paper towel for at least 15 minutes. This will soften the ink on the printhead. Move printhead assembly back to its resting position. You will probably notice that the paper towel now has one big black blob of ink on it. (There is so much excess ink on the printheads that all the colors are mixing to make black.) If you cannot clearly see individual colors, then dampen another spot on the paper towel and move the printhead back over the newly dampened spot on the paper towel. Continue repeating this until you see all the individual colors. You may have to use several pieces of folded paper towels.

Before turning the printer ‘on’, be certain to move the printhead back to its resting position (the extreme right side above the wiper blade) and remove the paper towel from inside the printer. Now that all excess ink has been removed from the printheads, your clogged nozzles should be cleared. It may take several pages of dense print to get the ink flowing properly.