Printer Problems

[andy]

Have a HP C6180 about 2 years old
About 3 months ago fitted it with refillable cartridges and all appeared well

Then last week it suddenly stopped printing in black

Have done numerous cleaning cycles and resets but to no avail.

Internet searches have gleaned that this problem is not uncommon but nobody has a certain fix for it

I suspected either a detached feed tube to the print head or a blocked print head.

So this afternoon I took a deep breath and stripped it down

Pump appears fine as when manually turned produces all 6 inks at printhead manifold which also puts cartridges in the clear

Now my questions ----

How do I manually clean the printhead which appears to be somewhat complicated and no obvious way to detach it from machine

Could I just flush it through with cartridge flush, could the pressure from a syringe damage it ?

What is best to use, alcohol does not seem to be a good solvent for the dye based ink, water is better. Have not got any printhead cleaner (have ordered some off ebay but not yet to hand ) A ring round the local computer shops did not yield any result.

Any suggestions very welcome as not happy about binning a 2 year old £180 machine !

Thanks in advance

Andy

[Tatts]

I managed to break a £400 printer a few months ago, by not using the proper cleaning cartridges.

If I was you, I'd wait until you get what you ordered..