Two productive hours with my printer

A tale of tech and terror. You've probably heard something like it before, so I won't mind if you don't read all of it, even though it concerns me and not some arbitrary office clerk, and it's the terrifying tale of how I lost two hours of my life. And I swear that all of it is true. And for once, neither Microsoft nor Windows are to blame.

My colleague with whom I'm sharing the office is preparing an exhibition on Francesco Petrarca. To this avail, she wanted me to print out a few pictures on my colour inkjet printer, as hers does only black and white. I was slightly wary because I hadn't used the office inkjet printer in ages and suspected that the cartridge might be dried out and/or the print head clogged, but anyway, I switched on the printer and decided to give it a go.

The first printout I produced was Petrarca in dayglo yellow, apparently because all the jets other than the yellow and the black ones were clogged:

I aborted and pressed the "clean print head" button for the first time on this afternoon. I did not know yet how often I would be pressing it again in the two hours that were to come.

A test page printout revealed that the printer had trouble with the magenta ink; the jets looked clogged, so I pressed the "Clean" button again.

Everybody who has ever owned an Epson printer knows about the somewhat idiosynchratic cleaning procedures of these printers. I always feel that the funny sounds they are making during the cleaning procedure are something of an unsuccessful surrogate entertainment programme to make the 90 seconds that the cleaning process takes somewhat less boring. I was not particularly entertained.

The test page looked promising. However, the next printout of the Petrarca picture was somewhat psychedelic:

I'm not sure what was wrong with the dyes, but it was obvious they were not being used in the correct combination. Another use of the "Clean" button. Things did not necessarily improve, though. With each cleaning process, the magenta ink seemed to become weaker, until it was almost gone.

I was not sure whether the ink was slowly being used up due to all the cleaning processes or whether it was just that the print head was clogged beyond belief because sometimes the colours would reappear, only to disappear again later. The printer itself claimed that the ink cartridge was still full, even though he seemed to be slowly losing the capability to print in yellow:

Two or three cleaning processes later, the cyan ink also seemed to be gone, and even the black ink was showing signs of coming to an end, but still the printer claimed that both cartridges were full, and thus it would not let me replace the cartridges with new ones.

I finally decided that the cartridges were to blame after all, and that I had to use force to replace them. I cut the power during a printout — the only way I could gain access to them — and replaced the cartridges. I hit the "Clean" button yet again. The result was not too promising. There were next to no colours and not even any black. Only a few ghosts on an otherwise empty sheet of paper.

[No picture here because there was really not much to see.]

So was it just the print head that was to blame? There was no way to tell. Still, after yet another cleaning procedure, it seemed that the colours were back. I got a seomewhat decent Petrarca printout, but it was much too light, because the black was obviously missing, but at least I got all the colours for a change. Or so I thought.

At that moment, the printer complained that the cartridges were empty and refused to print anything unless I would replace them. Never mind that I had replaced them only five minutes before and they were obviously new and full.

All I could do was take the cartridges out and put them in again. When I had done that, all the colours were gone again on the test printout. Probably some air had gotten into the print head. Yet another cleaning procedure.

The next Petrarca printout was pretty much like the previous one: no black. I printed other test pages: no black.

I pulled the plug on the printer again and had another look at the black cartridge. It seemed to have some transparent plastic stuff on it that wasn't on the old one. It turned out that the plastic tape that you have to pull off the cartridge before use had disintegrated during storage and hadn't come off properly. I managed to remove all of it with a scissors and a drawing pin.

Then another cleaning process. I think I can recite the sound pattern of it in my sleep now. Finally, Petrarca as he was supposed to look like in the first place.

Two hours for one bloody printout. This is how modern technology makes our lives easier.