Recovering Heads on a SP 300

[Chris Wool]

quote Jason Davies:

Trying to help out a local school who have a SP 300. Unfortunately the power was turned off last summer and everything seems to have dried up. I’ve cleaned the heads, we have new wipers on their way but a test print does nothing. Looks like the heads are blocked.

Can I soak the heads, there is a sponge they sit on on this model. If I can what do I soak them in? I guess anything is worth a try as the machine will just be scrapped as they can’t afford to have new heads fitted.

Thanks

would have thought it should have cappings like your old vp, if its been that long i would expect a lot more trouble, shake the carts, remove the dampers and see if ink comes, cleaning fluid is best but keep it away from the electronics.

[Jason Davies]

Thanks Chris, yes, thinking about it there are two cappings, could I just soak these in cleaning fluid and cross my fingers?

[Kevin Mahoney]

Will be a lot of work to recover the heads if they’ve both dried out, I’ve done it a couple of times. You will need to clamp off the pipes from the caps & soak again & again. In the end, I removed the dampers while the heads were capped off removed the power cable & routed the pipes from dampers to the waste bottle. I then pumped flush through the head a few times (just one way, don’t be tempted to push & pull) I used plenty of cloth to soak up & made sure I didn’t get any flush on the electronic components as Cris said. I think you will need to bin the ink, dampers & caps though.

[Jason Davies]

Thanks both, that’s a shame, haven’t got the time or knowledge to sort this 🙁

I’ll advise them to call out an engineer or use it as a door stop.

[Kevin Mahoney]

Worth the effort, been told a couple of times that mine needed new heads. Too pig headed to fork out for new unless it blows up

[Kevin Mahoney]

Worth the effort, been told a couple of times that mine needed new heads. Too pig headed to fork out for new unless it blows up

[Jason Davies]

Thanks Kevin

[Simon Worrall]

I went away for a few weeks some years back and somehow the backup power was turned off in my SP540.
the heads were completely blocked.
After a soak they came up perfect. I cant remember exactly how I did the soak, but I remember it was quite easy to do.
So have a little faith bud!