Yea,
Ok, First of all get a flashlight or work light positioned that you can illuminate the interior of the printer carriage.
This is all so simple it takes me less than 5 minutes. But I'll describe it step by step.
Turn the printer on and at that point the head will come out of it's resting position on the cap station. Quickly open the front cover of the printer and slide the head assembly to the left. If the printer is already on you can make the head assembly move out of the way by starting a nozzle check, and once it starts to move open the front cover of the printer and slide the head to the left.
However you get the head out of the way, now you can see the cap station with a good light, to the far right of the inside of the carriage assembly. What I do is just put a tiny flashlight right inside the printer carriage area and lay it there pointing to the cap area.
I have a small bottle of distilled water ready and a regular plastic straw. I suck some of the distilled water into the straw and put my thumb over the end of the straw to keep the water in the straw. Then I move the straw over the capping station and while moving it across the slots where the individual head nozzles sit, release my thumb and soak the entire pad area. Usually I do this three times to made sure I have soaked all the nozzle slots. Before I start this I place a lint free cloth underneath the cap assembly to catch any dripping water. This is a good idea because you don't want even the outside chance of shorting anything out. It doesn't seem like there is anything to worry about under that area, but I'm not taking even a slight chance there.
This straw technique is something someone on this list told me about and it works great. Alternatively you can soak a folded Bounty paper towel with distilled water and gently dab the cap station. I prefer to use this straw method because that way I don't have to even touch the pads and risk knocking them around, although if you are careful and have a good light you probably wouldn't move them anyway.
Just before doing the pad soaking I made sure I clean the little wiper blade that you will see is positioned in front of this area. It is very important also to not let ink build up on that plastic strip. If it does it won't clean the face of the heads correctly and that will lead to clogging and transferring ink onto the surface of the nozzles. I usually see the wiper blade accumulating ink even after just one day of large print output. Dirty wiper blades create dirty heads and they create clogs and missing nozzles. Don't knock the wiper blade out of it's position. If you do, snap it back in place. It's not a big deal you can always replace them but I've never had any trouble with any of this. I use a lint free cotton cloth soaked with distilled water for this. Don't use any Windex or anything like that which could dry out the pads and damage them over time.
As soon as the pads are soaked with distilled water, move the head back over them and close the front cover. At that point the printer will automatically do a short head cleaning. I then put a sheet of bond paper in the feed slot and go ahead and do the nozzle check.
You could unplug the printer during this whole process but I never do. Don't ever spray that area with a spray bottle! That's how you get in trouble shorting things out and blowing fuses on the main board. Only put the water right where it needs to be and the straw works perfectly for that.
Then when you turn off the printer this area will be tightly sealed and won't dry out for quite awhile. I also keep my printers covered when not in use. I use a thick muslin painters cloth from Home Depot. This helps keep heaters or air conditioners from drying out the pads. These caping stations are critical for keeping the print heads sealed and prevent air getting in there and drying out the heads. When the pads dry out they become brittle, loose their shape and don't fit the head assembly adequately. The drier your geographical environment is and the less you use the printer the more concern you should have about these pads drying out.
It is my feeling that this procedure should be done on all Epson printers that are not being used for long periods of time every day, and probably even for the ones that are. This keeps the area and wiper blade clean. The wiper blade will not clean itself, that's for sure. I only wish I had done this with all my Epson machines over the years. I'd have saved a lot of money on ink and waste tanks.
john
