How to Carry Out Printer Maintenance

Whether you own a business or use your printer at home, keeping it in top condition is crucial if you want to avoid unnecessary repair costs.

Keep your printer well maintained by following our simple advice.

Inkjet Printer Maintenance

The most common (and effective) way to give your inkjet printer an “MOT” is by performing a nozzle check.

Please note, you should ensure the printer has sufficient ink before starting a nozzle check or deep clean. If there isn’t enough ink in a printer with an integrated printhead, there’s a chance the printhead can be damaged by any charges that are sent to it. If the printhead is on the cartridge itself, you should opt for a printhead clean instead of a nozzle check.

To carry out a nozzle check, you need to insert a piece of A4 paper into the printer, click ‘Nozzle Check’ or an equivalent option (Nozzle Test) and then wait for a printout.

A large portion of nozzle tests will show the 4 main colours. However, some printers have more than four cartridges. The test page may have a variety of different hues per cartridge show up on the printout, which in turn tests each of the microscopic nozzles are performing correctly. Generally, a nozzle check includes printed lines and boxes. You then need to examine this printout for any missing lines, misaligned prints or any colours that are missing completely. If you find missing or faded colours, you’ll need to perform a deep clean. If anything is misaligned, then your printer may have the option to carry out a Print Head Alignment process.

A ‘deep clean’ is required should your printout show a problem with a particular nozzle (or not show anything at all).  This is an option that can commonly be found via your computer in the ‘properties’ menu. If this isn’t the case, then dig out your printer manual which should provide the best course of action to take. In some cases, individual nozzles themselves can be selected to be cleaned. A deep clean can take around two minutes and you’ll then be back to producing high-quality prints. It’s always worthwhile carrying out another nozzle check to be sure you’ve resolved the issue.

Should the nozzle head need to be realigned, we would recommend avoiding using universal instructions. Nozzle heads are model-specific pieces of equipment and therefore universal non-specific methods may damage the machine.

The safest way to realign nozzle heads is to refer to the machine’s manual and/or access the printer software via the application in use for printing. Then click the utility tab and select the option (or option similar to) Print Head Alignment.

Laser Printer Maintenance

To properly maintain a laser printer, we would always recommend removing the toner cartridge and cleaning it manually. More than half the job of cleaning your toner cartridge is done by gently removing the excess toner from the interior of the printer with a soft cloth.

Once you’re satisfied with the cleanliness of the cartridge and the printer itself, you will then need what is known as a ‘static cleaning sheet’. These sheets are inserted into the printer in the same way you would with an A4 piece of paper. They work by drawing the excess toner left in the printer’s interior. Once ran through the printer, the paper should have collected any excess dirt or toner which has been left over. This process is important for ensuring high-quality printouts. A lot of printer manufacturers, (such as HP), have a cleaning page option.

Don’t forget, here at Cartridge People we carry a vast range of affordable, reliable and quality printer ink and toner. Another way to make sure your printer is kept in top condition is by printing our printer test page.

Need more information? Be sure to contact our friendly Customer Service team, who are happy to help keep you printing!