I have read a few suggestions that imply the printer be left turned on (Power Switch) overnight or when not actually printing. I believe it was an effort to eliminate unnecessary head cleaning and purging.

My thought is that when the power switch is turned off the head makes contact with the damp sponge it lays on parked. This supposedly helps prevent the nozzles from drying out. Is this the case when the switch is left on also?? Are there any other reasons to operate one way or the other?

Is this one of those do what you like things as with shutting down the PC overnight or leaving it running.

Any thoughts in this regard? Mine is Epson R220

Thanks

Gumby

Gumby wrote:

I have read a few suggestions that imply the printer be left turned on (Power Switch) overnight or when not actually printing. I believe it was an effort to eliminate unnecessary head cleaning and purging.

That would figure and that's why I leave mine on..

It's also worth mentioning that the older style of auto-reset chip was the type to reset back to 100% full which results in a "priming" routine that uses up a lot of ink, so if you have an old CIS kit you might want to be wary of that.

Quote:

My thought is that when the power switch is turned off the head makes contact with the damp sponge it lays on parked. This supposedly helps prevent the nozzles from drying out. Is this the case when the switch is left on also?? Are there any other reasons to operate one way or the other?

I'm pretty sure that the difference between a unit being powered on and off is negligible in terms of the head actually being parked.. I believe it's the same positioning irrespective of the power status.

Quote:

Is this one of those do what you like things as with shutting down the PC overnight or leaving it running.

I guess so... I personally leave my printers on (there's 6 of them) because they're in use a lot and because at least one of the printers is the older chip type...

Ultimately I intend to hook up all the printers to a server that'll be always on so I can set it up to do purge patterns regularly in which case it'll all be on regardless.

Quote:

Any thoughts in this regard? Mine is Epson R220

Not really... it's dyebase ink, less prone to clogging unlike the C84/C86 durabrite printers although every head clean will result in a lot of ink use.


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Printers: (Canon) MP500/830, MX700, iP4000/4200/4300/4500/5200, iX4000(A3) (Epson) C84/86, D88, CX6600, R285/800/1900 (HP) K550, K850, K5400, L7680

Thanks for your experience Martin.

I'll try mine both methods to get a feel for what works best for me.

thanks;

Gumby

If leaving the printer on, is it OK to unplug the USB cable or set the printer to "pause printing" stage in Windows? I am asking this is that I want to control the printer usage of my six and 3 year old daughter and son. They might keep hitting the print button in some of their games . Thanks.

Raymond

rayq wrote:

If leaving the printer on, is it OK to unplug the USB cable or set the printer to "pause printing" stage in Windows? I am asking this is that I want to control the printer usage of my six and 3 year old daughter and son. They might keep hitting the print button in some of their games .

Hi Raymond,

I see this a lot in the nursery/kindergarten class at a school I provide tech support for so I know what you mean

In terms of a solution you could try right clicking the printer listing and choosing "Use printer offline" when the children are playing. This essentially queues up any print jobs and allows you to clear the queue of rubbish before you go back to using it again. There may be a more efficient ways to get around it and possibly a few utilities to do what you want but that should work until you can find something better.


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Printers: (Canon) MP500/830, MX700, iP4000/4200/4300/4500/5200, iX4000(A3) (Epson) C84/86, D88, CX6600, R285/800/1900 (HP) K550, K850, K5400, L7680