Mac utility to automatically print to avoid clogs

[digitaldog]

Found this on another site, seems to work in the one test I've tried.

Hi, I've written a small utility program for the Mac named Inkjet Plumber. The utility will send a small print job to the printer(s) of your choosing at the interval (in hours) that you specify.
It will print small (0.5" x 0.5") color swatches in cyan, yellow, magenta, black, gray, light gray, red, green, and blue. Some additional textual information regarding the page and paper settings is included in the development releases to assist in debugging. I may keep or remove this in future versions, based on feedback, etc.
It is intended to be used by infrequent inkjet users that would like to exercise their printer automatically. Many Windows users use QImage for this very purpose, but I'm a Mac only user and couldn't find anything to do the same for the Mac, so I decided to create Inkjet Plumber.
The program is released under the GLP3 open source software license and is hosted on Github. If you're interested in downloading and testing/using it, I'd appreciate it.
The program is Mac only at this point, however, it's written using a cross-platform framework named Qt, so if there's interest I may be able to provide a Windows version in the future.
You may download the most recent release available from here. https://github.com/jt70471/InkjetPlumber/releases
Thanks

[mkihne]

Found this on another site, seems to work in the one test I've tried.

Thx.  Will try as well.

[Mark Lindquist]

This is an excellent effort.  Was recently gone for 2 1/2 months away from the studio on a wilderness shoot - I could really have used this.

Thankfully the two printers left plugged in and running were HP Z Series printers and the micro-drip technology worked quite well but not perfect.

When I printed a diagnostic chart, first thing, the Magenta rectangle representing the magenta print head was missing.  Ended up replacing that printhead but that was about all.

I think the program would have saved that expense and the printers would have been functioning perfectly once back home after that Long period away from them..

Thanks for posting this.

Mark

[Nora_nor]

Is there some websites that keep track of programs like that? I mean printer exercise programs? Any out there for Windows?
I was wondering if anyone has thought of investing in a Raspberry pi and programming it to send files to printers. Those pi´s come cheap, one usually runs a form of Debian Linux on them, but the raspberry homepage has a very skeleton windows download for it too. The Linux versions can print

[PH Focal-Scape]

Hello.

Yes the excellent Windows printing programme QImage Ulitmate has a scheduled pattern printing function to prevent clogging. QImage One is the Mac version of that programme (been around for more than a year) and also includes that function.

Cheers

Peter

Found this on another site, seems to work in the one test I've tried.

" Many Windows users use QImage for this very purpose, but I'm a Mac only user and couldn't find anything to do the same for the Mac"

[BillK]

I have used inkjet plumber for a few years now. works great.

[enduser]

Mac users  use Qimage One.  https://www.binartem.com/downloads/

[D White]

I have been using a crontab in the terminal app in conjunction with automator to print a pattern on cheap plane roll paper every 3 days. Worked well when away on a trip for 6 weeks at a time.

[digitaldog]

I have been using a crontab in the terminal app in conjunction with automator to print a pattern on cheap plane roll paper every 3 days. Worked well when away on a trip for 6 weeks at a time.

Yup, or as outlined awhile ago, using an automator script with the Calendar app. Zero reason to purchase Qimage One just for such a task you can conduct for free.

[enduser]

Qimage purge routine can be one or any number of colors to use. The nozzles are pulsed, can be full or half page and can be optioned to produce higher intensity purge. The freqency of purging can be hours or days or per job. The price of Qimage is trivial.