The heads on my printer have dried out

[kbaby]

How can I salvage them. Ive hardly used the printer so dont want to have to buy a new one. Ive tried new cartridges but that hasnt worked.

[DaddyJ]

What model printer do you use?

By sheer coincidence, this weekend I shall be mostly trying to
salvage dried printer heads on a Canon.

[opinionateddad]

if this is a combined printer cart/head then you have a 50/5- chance of getting it working... the tubes that connect the internal ink chamber to the heads are microscopic and if these dry up you are scrwed...

However.... you can risk a alcohol wipe or similar to removed the residue from the head.. be very gentle and very carefull.. once cleaned use the printers cleaning cycle on the PC to see if this does the job...

This have worked in the past but sometimes the carts just need to be replace

[DaddyJ]

Done!
The missus worked out what the interweb
instructions actually meant in the end..
Our printer is the Canon MP390.

[kbaby]

iTS AN EPSOM PRINTER

[coby]

I wonder if that is what is wrong with my printer. It won't recognise any colour cartridge - what syptoms has your printer got? Mine is an epsom too.

[lurkingdad]

I had an old Epson Stylus colour 440 with dried up heads, through some internet searching I found a suggestion to use window cleaner on them, you know the liquidy stuff like windowlene, not the gloopy white stuff that used to come in pink bottles. Drip it onto the heads from the end of the pipe that feeds the spray head. Anyway it took some perseverance and reapplication, plus lots of time leaving it to soak in (think it took a couple of days over all with waiting). I did manage to get the heads all working again. But then I never used the printer and they all dried up again so now it sits in my garage waiting for me to freecycle it.