Inkjet printers may look, and feel, like cheap plastic boxes with some electronics inside, but they are quite the opposite. Just look at what you can print with them! They are pretty sophisticated machines. You can’t see what happens while you are printing (if you open the door on the printer, all printing stops), but  you can hear the print head moving back and forth. While it moves, it sprays ink drops, the size of red blood cells, on to predetermined locations on a piece of paper. These drops are sprayed at a rate of thousands per second. Pretty amazing!

To make sure your printer keeps doing an amazing job of printing you need to take care of it. Here’s what you should do.

1) Conduct routine maintenance with your printer software.

Almost all printers have functions called head cleaning and head alignment. The head cleaning function makes sure all ink nozzles are free of obstructions. If the heads are not clean, your printer will begin to print faint in some areas while printing normal in others. Periodic print head cleanings will prevent obstructions and keep your prints looking good. IMPORTANT – If your printer has not been used for a month you should definitely run the print head cleaning utility.

Print head alignment is a software routine that requires a little help from you. When you align your print head, you are making sure all the nozzles are pointing the right direction and firing in the right place. You’ll need to make sure that your printer has paper in the paper tray, then look at the print out after the alignment has run. If you see repeating white lines or grid patterns your print heads are still misaligned. Run the alignment utility repeatedly until they disappear. This maintenance step should be performed once or twice a year, or when you see white lines or grid patterns in your print outs.

2) Conduct routine maintenance of your printer’s roller and feed mechanism.

Standard copy printer paper leaves dust as it runs through your printer. Two-sided printer paper will leave a slick inkjet coating on your rollers. Ink, from your cartridge, can over spray and build up on the rollers. Over time the dust, inkjet coating, and over spray will result in streaks, inconsistent paper feeding, paper jams, or paper not feeding at all. All of these things lead to poor print quality, or no prints at all!

To make sure your rollers and feed mechanism always work properly, you should get a bottle of rubbing alcohol and some cotton swabs. First open your printer door then look down the paper tray of your printer. You should be able to see a metallic bar with some rubber wheels on it. Those are the rollers. You should be able to touch them with your fingers. Gently place the cotton swab (with alcohol already on it) on the roller. Now, push the paper feed button on your printer and the rollers will begin moving. Let the cotton swab rub on the roller as it moves. Repeat this a few times for each roller.

After you have cleaned the rollers, use a some canned air to blow any remaining dust and debris out of the printer. This type of maintenance should be done a few times a year, or whenever you notice inconsistent paper feeding.

Happy printing!

Disclaimer: These are just printer maintenance tips, so we can’t assume liability if you use them. Damage could occur. We’ve been using these tips to clean our printers for years. So far no problems.

If you are having some trouble with your Epson printer where can go you for help? Let’s talk about the best places to find Epson printer help.

The first place that will pop in to most of your minds is the Epson website (www.epson.com). After navigating to my local Epson website (North America) I found the easiest way to find information was to use the search box in the upper right corner. I searched for the RX600 and the first result was for technical support. Nice! The technical support screen offers the following options.

Drivers & Downloads
FAQ’s (for the printer)
Troubleshooting Guide
Documents and Manual
Material Safety Data Sheets
Contact Support

A very nice list of services and information, which proved to be quite useful.

The second place that comes to mind for most is their favorite search engine. For most that is Google. If you do a search for ‘Epson Printer Troubleshooting’. Three of the more popular help sites are shown (right under the Epson website); ehow.com, fixyourownprinter.com, and fixya.com.

The information on these three sites are all driven by Epson printer users. Visitors to the sites can post questions or describe the problems they are having. Other members of the community will then share their experiences, hopefully the same as yours, and what they remedied their printer troubles. Chances are your current trouble is something someone else has already experienced. You’ll probably be able to find the help you need within a few minutes.

Most read a title like this, “HP Has Raised Ink Cartridge Prices”, and don’t think to much of it. Cartridge prices are all ready high, right?

Effective July 1, HP raised prices for older DesignJet ink cartridge and print heads by around 10%. This increase is due to the rising cost of production and raw materials.

As discussed in the past, the earthquake and tsunami in Japan are responsible for HP cartridges shortages. The natural disaster could also be responsible for the raw material shortages causing the price increase. The increased cost of crude oil (increased 20% from last year) is another reason. The manufacturing of ink cartridge casings (plastic) and other components in both ink and toner cartridges require crude oil.

This is the perfect cartridge storm! Combine the increased cost of raw materials with a shortage of supplies caused by the Japan earthquake, then add in the rising cost of transportation and HP has unlimited reasons for increasing cartridge prices for as long as they want. Let’s hope they don’t take advantage of the situation.

Hewlett Packard (HP) has introduced their smallest color multifunction printer, the HP LaserJet Pro 100 color MFP M175nw.

This printer has, perhaps, the longest name ever for a printer, but it also contains almost as many features as letters in it’s name. The M175nw is targeted at home office and small-business users with limited workspace. It is only 17 inches wide, 17 inches deep, and 13 inches tall. Easy to fit in small spaces, and easy for one person to move. It features HP ePrint remote printing, allowing users to print from any mobile device (BlackBerry, iPhone, Palm OS).  The M175nw has a 150 sheet input tray, wireless networking, Ethernet connectivity, and a 35 page top loading auto-document feeder. It uses four separate laser toner cartridges.

Other features to note on the new LaserJet include a 150-sheet input tray; wireless networking along with USB 2.0 and Ethernet connectivity; four separate laser ink cartridges; and a 35-page top-loading automatic document feeder for hands-free scanning and faxes.

Multifunction printers always offer a touch screen. HP has decided that this printer does not need a touch screen because it did not get good reviews on their inkjet version of this printer.

The HP LaserJet Pro 100 color MFP M175nw retails for $350.

Back in March I wrote about possible HP cartridge shortages caused by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan (Possible Printer Ink Cartridges Shortages). While HP doesn’t necessarily manufactured their inkjet and toner cartridges in Japan, they do source components from a partner (Canon) that has a manufacturing facility in Japan. It’s hard to say how hard this partner was hit by the disaster, but it is becoming evident it was hard enough to cause shortages in some of HP’s more popular printer cartridges. In March, HP announced that it would be limiting the distribution of some of its toner cartridges.

Here we are, the first day of July, and distributors are seeing (feeling the effects) of the limited distribution. First the good news, HP has lifted the restriction on the 78A (C6578A) printer ink cartridge. Now for the rest of the news!

The HP 85A Black Toner Cartridge (CE285A) is still in very short supply. So is the high yield HP CE250X Black Toner Cartridge. Distributors are finding both of these cartridges to be very hard to come by. Consumers should be seeing the same.

If you typically shop at the larger office super stores you may not see the effects of this shortage. HP, as most businesses, will always make sure the shelves of their largest suppliers are always stocked. If you prefer to buy your cartridges from other vendors, you may find yourself being forced to look to someone new. Don’t expect your current cartridge vendor to have these cartridges in stock.

Finally, if you learn that an order you placed for one of these cartridges is back ordered, make sure you check with the vendor to see when they expect to have the cartridge back in stock. Despite what you are told, make sure you have a contingency plan in place. The vendor may have a time line, but HP’s supply restrictions will dictate what that actual time line is. Unfortunately, it is out of the vendor’s hands.