Let's talk about maintaining your printer. Anyone who uses edible ink printers regularly in their edible decorating process should have these tips on hand to make the most out of their printer. Here's what we recommend to keep your printer workflow seamless and to keep potential issues at bay.
1. IF YOU'RE HOME, TURN IT OFF AND ON.
If you use your printer twice or more a week, that is great. However, on the days you don't use it, we recommend to turn it on and off as that will cause the printer's insides to run a brief cleaning cycle and prevent cartridges from drying out. You can also use your printer with edible ink for prints on regular copy paper as it will keep the printer in use and prevent the cartridges from drying out.
2. IF YOU'RE GOING AWAY, REMOVE THE CARTRIDGES.
If you're heading out of town or are going to be away from your printer for a few days (like a vacation for example), it is recommended that you:
✅ Remove the cartridges and attach the orange clips that came with them to the bottom of the cartridges while you're away.
✅ When you're back and ready to get printing again, remove the printhead, clean it, let it dry out and install it back into you printer. It's very important that the printhead be dry before being installed back into the printer.
3. FACING SOME INKFLOW ISSUES? VENT YOUR CARTRIDGES.
Sometimes during shipping a vacuum occurs inside the cartridges causing an inkflow problem. This can be resolved by venting the cartridges. Click here to see instructions on how to vent your cartridges. In order to improve ink flow and make the cartridges less susceptible to these issues, we recently improved the formula in our cartridges which you can find by clicking here.
4. ONCE IN A WHILE, CLEAN YOUR PRINTHEAD.
It is recommended to perform a printhead cleaning once in a while using food-safe printhead cleaning solution. This will make sure that the ink can always flow smoothly and the nozzles in your printhead are not clogged. The longer you have your printer in use without cleaning, the more will build up in the nozzles over time. Our printhead cleaning kit can be found by clicking here.
5. DON'T REFILL YOUR CARTRIDGES MORE THAN 3 TIMES.
If you refill your cartridges, please make sure to not refill them more than 3 times. After 3 times of refilling you should get a new set of cartridges. The outlet port of the cartridges wears out over time and will cause print quality issues at some point if you refill them more than 3 times.
