Hi, Everyone,
I've never posted a question before, so here goes.
I live in Washington state 7 months of the year (April - Nov) and Arizona the other 5 months )Nov - April). I don't worry about my Epson inkjet printer in WA when we leave as it is the cold months and the ink doesn't dry out - even from lack of use. However, we set our home in AZ at 88°F when we leave and the temps there can reach 115°F. I have always removed the ink cartridges from my printer in AZ and then replaced them with new cartridges when we arrive.
Here's the problem. I bought a new printer last year - Epson XP-7100 (because it prints on CDs and DVDs) - replaced the cartridges upon arrival, but did not get a good test page or nozzle print page when I tested it. I cleaned the heads 3 time (using up ink in the process), but the problem did not clear up. I emailed Epson report and they asked me a lot of questions, which I answered, and said that I couldn't use remanufactured ink in the printer. They said it would ruin the print head. I have always used remanufactured ink in my Epson printers because it's much, much cheaper.
Anyway, I bought new Epson ink (to the tune of $80), but the problem was not resolved. I would get a pattern for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Photo Black but not Black. Epson support said it was a hardware problem so I need to contact an Epson technician. Upon doing this (over the phone not in person because he was 80 miles away), he said that I should NOT have removed the ink cartridges as that allowed the air to get to the print heads and thus dry the remaining ink and clog them. He would soak the heads in a solution for 24 hours - test it, if still not printing well - soak the heads for another 24 hours and test it again. If it still didn't print, then I needed a new printer. So, it would cost me $50 for a service call, 2 round trips to the technician and I might still have to buy a new printer.
I know this has been long-winded, but I felt like you needed to have all the details in order to give me some advice. Do I leave the ink cartridges in the printer when we leave in April or remove them? I'm very interested in hearing if anyone else has had this problem or knows what to do.
Thanks in advance,
Pam (tmscrapbook)