Printer Problem

[emperor]

I have an HP Photosmart B109a. I am using compatible inks. After 12 or so prints of crossword puzzles the grid,but not the clues, starts to print pinky red instead of black. I have tried greyscale but no better. Also colour has been lost on other images. It seems to be a loss of Cyan. A head clean within printer services restores all to normal but fails again a few copies later. Inks are all newish. Any thoughts anybody please??

[Maydup]

I have the same printer emperor and I'm sorry to say that I've virtually given up with it. The colour inks print very few copies per cartridge and if I do not use it for a week the ink dries up. After the last £50 worth of inks i vowed not to bother anymore and haven't.

I have got used to not printing anything now, but a time will come when I need to, so I might do some research and see I can count my losses and buy a new printer.

I don't use the features on the B109a and will look for a simple alternative. No wonder it was on special offer when I bought it, the ink costs more than the thing itself. I've certainly learnt the hard way. Sorry I can't help you but sympathise.

[Wak]

Cleaning the cartridge with the printer services, uses, or should I say wastes?, a lot of ink of all colours whether they need cleaning or not.
The next time they dry up, try putting the print head in a scaucer of hot (not boiling) water and leave until cool then dab dry with a paper tissue until the colours shows OK ( or repeat as necessary until OK).
Print out a single line of capital letters of each colour (black, red, yellow and Blue) to check that all are printing OK without having whitish streaks running through the letters.
If any colour has the white/pale streaks running through it then just print half a page of that particular colour until running true so that you don't waste any of the remaining inks.
Hope this helps.