Printer Power Cleaning Is Designed to Help
Or is it…?
This procedure is sometimes called power ink flushing or heavy purge, it could be initiated through the inbuilt control panel (printer’s control interface) or a software, that you are using to control your printer from the operating system.
It is implemented to help troubleshoot some printing issues, but it has some controversy, and may be overused amongst unsuspecting users.
What Is the Issue With Power Cleaning?
Power cleaning may fill up your printer’s maintenance tank! This might be a problem, because some of printer models do not have replaceable maintenance box, or they could be discontinued if your printer is one of those older models.
In addition, power cleaning does not usually allow you to pick which specific color needs to cleaned. Which generally means, that other colors are being purged with no reason at all. And, of course, one could argue that such a design is wasteful, and they would likely be correct. It does seem like most of the printer’s features are geared toward planned obsolescence and encouraging additional purchases.
Essentially, power cleaning just forces to purge ink at highest flow rate in attempt to unclog the system. It does not have a system in place (at least not that I know of) to determine whether or not this procedure was successful. Additionally, it is not effectively programmed to halt the procedure prematurely if the blockage has been removed.
What this means is that your printer will be forced to bleed at least a third of your perfectly good ink into the concealed compartment. This particular action might trigger a sensor putting your system in an incapacitated mode. In this state, you will be forced to get professional technicians involved before printing again. This is not uncommon, please read your owners manual before proceeding with power cleaning for your printer.
At this point I feel like you might be guessing, isn’t there a better option? And you will be right, because there most definitely is.
There are several less aggressive routines you can try before resorting to this power cleaning cycle. One of those would be purge sheet that you can get free on our website. It comes in PDF format and essentially requires no technical skills to work with.
One of the main advantages of using purge sheets is that you can focus on misbehaving color and not waste other inks. Also, it will not diminish the capacity of the maintenance box, which, if you remember, might or might not be replaceable on your device.