If you’re having problems with the quality of your printing, a good place to start is by carrying out a nozzle check. When printers are unused for long periods of time especially if you’re edible printing this can cause problems with your printhead. Running a nozzle check will help to establish whether any of the nozzles are blocked, and therefore whether your ink cartridges and printhead are functioning correctly.
Printing the Nozzle Check Pattern
Please note: If the remaining ink level is low in any of your cartridges, the nozzle check pattern will not be printed correctly. Replace/ fill the ink cartridge whose ink is low.
- Make sure that the power on your IX6850 edible printer is turned on.
- Load a sheet of A4 plain paper in the rear tray (if you’re edible printing don’t waste your icing sheets, using normal copier paper is fine for this task and won’t cause any damage).
- Open the front cover gently, then pull out the paper output tray.
- Hold down the RESUME/CANCEL button until the POWER lamp flashes white twice, then release it immediately. This is the lower orange button on the RHS of the printer
The nozzle check pattern will be printed.
Do not perform any other operations until the printer completes the printing of the nozzle check pattern.
What Should the Nozzle Check Pattern Look Like?
Examine the nozzle check pattern, and clean the printhead if necessary by running the cleaning cycle on your printer or for a deep clean remove the printhead and clean it under running water. Full instructions can be found on our EPS YouTube channel.
- Check if there are missing lines in the pattern (A) or horizontal white streaks in the pattern (B).
- (C) Number of sheets printed so far
Cleaning the print head is required if:
- If there are missing lines in the pattern (A):
- (D) Good
- (E) Bad (lines are missing)
2. If there are horizontal white streaks in the pattern (B):
- (F) Good
- (G) Bad (horizontal white streaks are present)
3. If there are colours missing altogether
We’ve found the best way to clean the printhead is to remove it from the printer and run it under hot water (as hot as you can stand it).