Epson 9900 - seriously bad nozzle pattern

[Stephen G]

The power to my house was cut in the middle of a print run earlier today. It was out for about eight hours so the head on my 9900 was uncapped and drying out for all that time. I powered up about half an hour ago and printed a nozzle check. See attached.

The top of the image is the nozzle check. There wasn't much ink getting through (understatement) so I started a QTR patch page to push some ink through the head. I then stopped it, thinking that if some nozzles are truly caked and dry I might cause damage by trying to force ink through.

The head is now properly capped, and the printer is off. I'm going to leave it overnight before taking another look.

My plan is to run a cleaning cycle first, to try and get some of the gunk off the head, but if anyone reads this and has a better approach please chime in.

[nirpat89]

I am surprised why folks are not using UPS's for their computer/printer equipment so such accidents are prevented. 

[Stephen G]

Yup, fair point. I should have been using a UPS.

[deanwork]

Turn on the printer, when the head comes half way out open the front cover. Use a good light to look back into the capping station. Take some disilled water on a lint free cloth and carefully soak the capping station. I use a straw sucking the water into it and releasing my finger over the end to dispense water on each of the places the ink nozzles sit. Put the head over the cap station and close the front cover. When you do that it will do a nozzle cleaning bringing a little of the distilled water into the head. Turn the printer off and leave several hours. Repeat and leave overnight.

Then do a couple of nozzle checks.

The power to my house was cut in the middle of a print run earlier today. It was out for about eight hours so the head on my 9900 was uncapped and drying out for all that time. I powered up about half an hour ago and printed a nozzle check. See attached.

The top of the image is the nozzle check. There wasn't much ink getting through (understatement) so I started a QTR patch page to push some ink through the head. I then stopped it, thinking that if some nozzles are truly caked and dry I might cause damage by trying to force ink through.

The head is now properly capped, and the printer is off. I'm going to leave it overnight before taking another look.

My plan is to run a cleaning cycle first, to try and get some of the gunk off the head, but if anyone reads this and has a better approach please chime in.

[Stephen G]

@deanwork, thank you for commenting. I've dodged a bullet. I ran standard cleaning cycle about 30mins ago and the nozzle check after that was perfect in all channels except LC and VM. I then cleaned the wiper and replaced it, which triggered another cycle. All nozzles 100% after that.