Imagine when you just came back from vacations, pull out the printer, plug a camera memory cards and about to print all your photos and then you find out that printing device isn't working. Before all that happen, here are some tips and suggestions to help increase your printer lifespan and ways to make it works correctly again if possible
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Keep It Clean
You will think this one is pretty obvious, but it is unbelievable just how many people don't clean their printers. Everything, not just printers, requires a clean now and then to keep it working properly. To help the printing process, toner and printer ink contain additives such as polish, drying lubricants and agents that will, expectantly, enter the tiny gap of the printer after a long print out activity. A build-up of the tiny drop causes printer parts to clog and seize and cover important receptors in your computer printer.
The best way to start cleaning your printing device is to turn it off first. After that, you will need a tiny brush (A clean, fine Bristle paint brush is effective) to completely clean off dust particles around the printer external surfaces. For the inside mechanical parts, I choose to use 70% Isopropyl alcohol on a cotton ball and carefully dab out the chunks of printer ink, combined with a dried out paper towel to polish. NEVER use water to clean the inside of your printing device, Isopropyl Alcoholic liquid evaporates quickly and leaves a little to nothing water residue behind.
Gently Unblocking the Paper
When papers are jammed on a printer DO NOT pull the paper through the output tray. This is bad for the paper wheel which provides the paper through and can also rip the paper, leaving a piece of torn paper, that may harm your printer.
Most printers have a rear hatch that may allow you to reach the printer wheels, where the papers usually stuck. After the jammed paper is located, be cautious when taking away the paper to avoid breaking or harming other elements of the printer.
Use them often
It is an advice from most manufacturers to keep your printing device in regular use. Regular use will prevent printer ink from clogging the head which can cause smudgy results or the absent of color. Regular use will also prevent dirt from settling within your printer that will eventually increase the printer's performance.
Paper quality is important
Every paper looks exactly the same to the naked eye. Actually, printer paper comes in many types. One of the key measurements for paper is its grammage or density of the paper. Paper with less density or less grammage is often cheaper and most likely to be the choice of most people that seeks to save a few pennies, the drawback is the fact that low-density papers, because of its flimsiness, are more likely to cause paper jams, something you don't want to happen to your printer. A grammage of 90g/m2 is a common standard for high-quality paper.
Avoid Cheap Toner and Inks
Printer ink and Toner is expensive, this is a reality. It's very tempting to buy a refilled, compatible, or remanufactured toner and ink to reduce the expense of printing. But as you already know a new, original cartridges are undoubtedly the best and safest to work with. It is like putting a used engine part into your car rather than the manufacturer approved one, it may work just fine at first but the performance will be damaged and will likely to break down.
Printer Ink includes a print yield, which can be an estimated of how many prints you can do before the cartridge runs away. Original printer ink cartridges can produce between 1000 to at least one 1 million images before it expires.