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38 Maintaining Your Printer
Running the Head Cleaning Utility
1. Make sure the printer is on but not printing, and the b maintenance light is off.
Note: You can’t clean the print head if the b maintenance light is flashing or on.
Replace the appropriate ink cartridge instead.
2. Windows: Open an application and select Print from the File menu. Click
Properties or Preferences. Then click the Utility tab.
Macintosh OS X: Open the Applications folder on your hard drive.
Double-click EPSON Printer Utility and select SP 1280 in the printer list. Then
click OK.
3. On the Utility menu, click the Head Cleaning button.
4. Follow the instructions on the screen
to clean the print head.
Cleaning takes about 30 seconds,
during which the printer makes some
noise and the Ppower light flashes.
Caution: Never turn off the printer
while the Ppower light is flashing,
unless the printer hasn’t moved or
made noise for more than 5 minutes.
5. When the Ppower light stops flashing, run a nozzle check to confirm that the
print head nozzles are clean.
Make sure paper is loaded in the printer and click
Print Nozzle Check Pattern
(Windows) or Confirmation (Macintosh). Then click Print. The nozzle check
pattern prints (see the next section for details).
6. If the nozzle check pattern has no gaps in its lines, click Finish.
If the pattern has white lines, click Clean to clean the print head again.
If you don’t see any improvement after cleaning three or four times, check the
solutions in “Print Quality Problems” on page 54. You can also turn the printer
off and wait overnight—this allows any dried ink to soften—and then try cleaning
the print head again.