I've not used my 1280 printer for a couple of months, and have gone through 6 successive head cleaning routines to get perfect looking Nozzle Check patterns. I've also gone through the head realignment routine (no adjustments were needed).

In spite of this, my prints now have horizontal lines in them and the colors are way off. My inks and paper are the same as before. My print settings are the same.

The only changes are the passage of two months of idle time, with the ink cartridges remaining in place; and my upgrading my Mac OS from 10.3.9 to 10.4.1.

I am aware that Epson has the print heads in the printer (not in the cartridges as HP does).

Might anyone know of any routine I can do to restore my 1280 to it's previous (March 2005) GREAT print output quality? Might there be some other head cleaning cartridges or routine that I can use?

Thanks, Larry

Hi Larry,

All I can say is that I feel for you and hope you figure it out. I had a 1280, sold it partly because of the head cleaning fiasco (others reasons too). It's a good printer but it's frustrating having to do the head clean/test print 10 times until it looks good.

Have you tried calling Epson? Is it under warranty? Maybe they can give you some tips.

You might need to get some flushing/cleaning fluidto put in place of the ink cartridges to allow to stand overnight and then cycle head cleaning them a couple of times. The you take them out and put the colour cartridges back in, do a couple of cleans and try again.

I had a similar problem recently with my Epson 760 continious inking system after standing for a while without use and had to do that with mine. Now back to printing correctly again.

What you have is ink clogging some of the heads and it needs to be softened a bit to allow ink to flow again.

Hope that helps in someway.

Try going to http://www.mediastreet.com/cgi-bin/tame/mediastreet/inkcart_results.tam?rlk=3752742 for products to assist you.

Thanks Peter and Trevor. I have mediastreet.com and have asked them the following questions, before ordering their head cleaning cartridge(s):

I've an Epson 1280 needing some jet flushing. I've seen that both the FF-007 and FF-009 are designed for the 1280. Questions:

1. What's the difference between them, except for the price?

2. Will one of these cartridges clean BOTH the color and B&W jets?

3. Why is your fluid better than simply doing successive ink-wasting cleanings, since your cartridges are more expensive than ink cartridges?

4. The printer will not operate without both a B&W and Color cartridge installed. Do your FF-007 and FF-009 packages each contain two cartridges?

5. Might you have refill bottles of fluid for the cartridges? And if so,

6. Can I simply purchase a bottle of the fluid and use this to recharge exhausted cartridges to use for head cleaning in the future?

Thanks, Larry

With my 760 I have two cartridges, one is black and the other is the 3 colours. So if you are the same then you would have to buy both. I have had them for about 18 months now and when not used, I tape the area where they connect to the printer and put them upside down in the box they come in. You don't really use that much cleaning fluid, it is mainly to thin the ink that has hardened in the print heads and then to allow them to flush the heads once or twice and put the ink cartidges back in again. I'm pretty sure you can buy the fluid as well and then refill them again, but you might not have to do that for a long time.

Doing successive ink cleanings wastes the ink unnecessarily as you need to free the clogged heads and you might not be able to do that with just using the ink as the head is clogged up and needs softening with something. Think along the lines of paint and using thinners (solvent) when painting.

Hope that clears it up.

I'm on the Epson printer email list and a member there has a printer cleaning FAQ. He doesn't want it just put out on the web. Anyone can write me a private message and I'll send the cleaning instruction to you.....Jim C