Thursday, February 16, 2012

Lexmark Pro901 Printhead Error- How to fix it!

Have you been struck with the Printhead Error, or very streaky prints too?

So I have had this printer for about a year and a half now, and all of a sudden the printhead error monster got me too (and I too found out that the item was backordered).  Before that, the printer had worked mostly great and was super cost effective.  Well desperate times called for desperate measures, and so I decided to take the print head out and clean it myself.  A day later (not right away mind you as it has to dry first) I have a working printer head :).  Not like I had anything to lose with my printhead error message. Try at your own risk :).  I wrote this after seeing other people would be in the same boat as me :)

1)Try the safest first
Lexmark says just to wipe the bottom back of the printhead with a cloth (this was a no go and didn't work for me).  Here is the article on Lexmark's Printerhead Cleaning

2) A little more risky
"Remove the ink cartridge from your printer and then dip a cotton swab in hot water or isopropyl alcohol and rub it against the print head (the little circles on the top you will see once your remove the ink-- there are 4). This should loosen any crusted ink. NOTE: Be careful, especially if you use isopropyl alcohol to clean your print heads, moderately good." From-  How to clean your ink cartridge-

3) What I did
I turned the print head upside down-- where the ink comes out the back (there is gold foil here),  and put two caps of isopropyl alcohol inside), then I shook it and drained it out, then repeat until I stopped getting so much ink.  I then  actually put the whole thing under hot water (this time with the printerhead right side up, so it drained out the bottom), and let it get all the ink out.  Waited a day for it to dry and tada a working print head, better than ever before :).

Unsure about getting a printerhead wet, I was... I felt a little better about getting the printerhead wet when I saw this little video (which shows that pros hydroblasting water into printer heads, so I thought it would be ok for me to do-- just skip to 10:52 to see the printhead submerged like a submarine.

Try at your own risk, and good luck :) :) :)