Printhead Hospital cleaning kit for Epson Stylus, Workforce and Ecotank inkjet printers - 150ml

Our Epson Stylus SX510W suddenly stopped printing anything black, and generally we only print stuff in black, so that was a problem. Tried all the Troubleshooting stuff, ran various Head Cleans, changed all the cartridges, even changed the black 3 times (may have been lucky, wasn't....), and also the ultimate fix-all method of turning it off and on again a few times. Nothing worked. Then I stumbled on the video tutorial for this product on YouTube, and from there found the kit on Amazon, figured it was worth a shot. The kit arrived quickly, nicely packaged, clear instructions, and of course very useful to have a video for reference too.The only thing I did that was a little different to the instructions, was to tell the printer I was changing the ink in order to get the carriage in the place where the cartridges are accessible. Then I switched it off. I didn't want to risk cutting the power while it was trying to print, and although my method meant that the carriage was locked in place, I could still get the blotting paper under there no problem.Having left the fluid to soak for an hour, the result was excellent. I didn't have a perfect Test Pattern, but it was mostly unbroken, and easily good enough to get us printing again. However, a few weeks later I ran a second Test, and as you can see in the picture, it is in fact now perfectly unbroken (the other pattern is from before we tried the kit for comparison).So, I can't recommend this solution highly enough. Nice and simple, saves an old printer going to landfill, and saves us the money that we thought we were going to have to spend on a new printer.

Never used a cleaning kit before. I chose this kit because it seemed better value than the others, coming with 150ml rather than 100ml of fluid. I'm sure they all use the same solution so it's really just a matter of cost. I had some old aquarium tubing and a syringe I was going to use, but glad I purchase the kit because the inner diameter of the hose is very small, which creates a tight fit on the printer nozzles.Anyway, if you're having minor issues with printing that isnt solved by the printers own cleaning cycle, then you may get a quick fix. However it took me about half a day in the end. I hadnt used the printer in a long while, and printhead had dried up. Im confident the actual cartridges were fine. Once I did a couple of flushes the Yellow, Black and Magenta were fine, but the Cyan still very weak. After a few more attempts I left the fluid in the print head over night as instructed, and then did a 1ml flush in the morning. Wasnt much improved, so I tried to forcefully blast a bit more liquid through each time. Then repeated the procedure as follows: 1) Clean print head with fluid, 2) Run printer cleaning cycle, 3) print test page, 4) print full solid Cyan colour page from Printhead Hospital website. Things were definitely improving but still not perfect so I decided to flush through a big load of liquid. Suddenly no cyan at all!!! So frustrating. So i started over again with the cycle. Cut a very long story short, after the initial clean, I dont think I ever had a problem with dried ink blockage. Ink was always flowing through onto the blotting paper when I did the flush. So what was causing my issue? I'm almost certain it was air. You have to be careful as you solve one problem you don't create another. As I was pumping lots of liquid through, and pumping it back and forth to clear the line, I trapped air inside. This will kill the printing dead. What you need then to do is flush through 1-2ml and as said in instructions, remove the syringe and replace the cartridge quickly. Why? Because as you remove the syringe, the fluid starts pouring back out the front. As it does this, air is getting sucked inside. I feel like you need to create a full system of liquid, almost a siphon. So you shove the cartridge back in quickly to trap that liquid in. Doesn't matter that you've got a line full of cleaning solution and ink. Eventually it will flush out. And sure enough, after a few more cleaning cycles, the colour got better and better and is now solved. Andy, the guy who runs the company was very very helpful. So nice to speak to someone these days. And great money back guarantee which I wont need now. He suggested going forward, that I make sure i leave the printer on at all times. Also, to replace ink as soon as it says "getting low" otherwise you risk entrapping air or drying out the head. Or switch over to an Ink Tank printer, that suffers less with this issue. Very very happy with Andy and the Printhead Hospital.

My Epson venerable WF3620 was getting a bit tired with some print dropout and streaky photos. Repeated head cleaning did not improve matters.I chose this kit a tad reluctantly given that the listing warned that irreparable damage can be caused to the printer in 0.01% of cases.....Anyway, it was a proper head clean or a new printer so I went ahead with the purchase.The first confusion was the differences in the instructions in the listing, those supplied with the kit (totally inadequate) and the excellent Google video tutorial. I chose to use the video method and, as suggested, 'unlocked' the print heads by unplugging the printer during a head cleaning cycle. I initially cleaned all 4 heads with the suggested 5 minutes (wait time between applications of fluid). Afterwards, I installed new cartridges and did a couple of head cleaning cycles. While things had improved, there were still some dropouts.So, I did it all again but with a 20 minute wait time. Alas, the printer then didn't recognise the cartridges at all! After powering off the printer and reinstalling the cartridges, everything burst into life and its like having a new printer!So, despite a few trials, the kit did work which makes it good value. However, patience is required. To be fair, everything you need is in the kit and there is sufficient fluid and blotting paper to allow multiple uses. The video did suggest using kitchen roll rather than the blotting paper. However, it is tricky getting sufficient kitchen roll positioned under the heads. Instead, I used 2 strips of the blotting paper. I used one initially then replaced it just before the second application of fluid. Despite my simultaneous cleaning of all 4 heads, this did the trick without undue mess.In the end, use of the kit is certainly cheaper and easier than getting and installing a new printer! Patience is a virtue....