Is it worth buying a new print head for i560
Why do you think the head is bad? Treated with care, these things are bulletproof.
I have an i560 which was discarded but clean. I first ran a test page and the printer worked fine, but with many streaks.
Part of that was "fuzz" stuck under the head wiping across the paper. The other part was clogged jets. Here's the cool part.
This head is built like a tank and is very easy to remove and unclog.
First always remember, NEVER place the head jets down on anything or touch them with anything other than LIGHT pressure with a soft paper towel or cloth.
Remove all 4 ink tanks and if they have a decent amount of ink in them, and are not very old, carefully place them upside down somewhere safe, label side down, ink pads up. Work quickly to minimize ink evaporation this point forward.
Remove the head assy. lifting the blue latch on the right side. It's pretty spring loaded. This will completely release the printhead.
Carefully pull the top part forward, then up and out. Don't touch the gold contacts but do check visually to see if they're clean. If not, a soft damp cloth will likely clean it up and get old ink off.
Use a small plate with about 1/2" of warm water and holding the printhead by the edges, place the jets just into the warm water. The water will instantly start to turn brown from all the ink. Using a dry soft paper towel or cloth, take the head and gently press the towel onto the metallic jet assemblies and draw out all the old ink. You will see black from the K jets, and tri-colors from the CMY jets.
You can repeat this with clean warm water again. Remember not to take a long time as your ink tanks are sitting open. 10 minutes should be more than enough time.
Use wet qtips to clean old ink from around the inside of the head, where the tanks go, around the outside of the round silver screens. There are rubber seals there and you want those clean. The screens are very delicate and do not touch them with anything.
Use dry qtips to remove all water from the seals and any other area in the head assy. Again, do not tough the screens.
Finish by using a damp towel to very gently wipe down the bottom side and the ink jets. A little more ink will probably come out into the towel.
Once everything a dry, place the head carefully back into the printer locating the bottom, jet part first into the carriage then push the top part with the contacts toward the back to seat it. make sure it's all the way in by slightly "jiggling it". It should not move around and be "in".
Move the blue latch to the down position to lock in the head.
Replace the ink tanks but make sure ink is not leaking out the bottoms as this indicates a bad seal on the tank and it's a gonner.
Close the printer cover and let it complete the automatic cleaning cycle.
Print a test page:
With the printer on and idle, press the right paper eject/cancel button and hold it down until the green light flashes off-on TWICE then remove your finger. It goes like this "hold down button, green light goes off, flashes on-off...on-off... release button!
This triggers a 4 color test print and will show all the black jets and color strips for the color jets.
If everything is clean (and it's going to be a LOT cleaner now!), you should see nice even colors and a nice stairstep pattern at the top for the black with no missing lines.
If it's pretty good, but has some minor issues, you're close.
You can open the printer and repeat the warm water procedure.
One other thing I did you really clean out all the old ink was to use an eye dropper and place a drop of the clean water on top of the metal silver screens. Then gently press a towel up on the ink jets as before. You will see the water sitting on the screens disappear as it's drawn into the jets and you will see even more ink coming out.
This should give you a brand new printhead.
If you see any debris or ink or discoloration on the gold contacts (they should all be shiny gold), you can gently use a damp CLEAN towel to gingerly wipe off the debris.
As a last resort, if some look discolored, and SOFT PLASTIC eraser (like Mars Plastic) can be used to clean them using minimal pressure. Any eraser dust must then be brushed off with a soft brush, or a damp CLEAN towel followed by gentle wiping them dry.
In my case a poorly operating head to this day (years later) prints totally perfectly as if new.
Despite what DocPlayer claims, these heads are solid, meant to last (as opposed to the throw-away ones) and are durable.
The most vulnerable part are the ink jets themselves with are highly precise and tiny and easily damaged through carelessness.
Treat them gently and with nothing other than soft paper towels or cloth so they cannot get scratched, and assuming there is not any damage to them, you should have a brand new head.
I have resurrected these heads myself and every time, they cleaned up and run perfectly.
Finding new replacements, I suspect, would be difficult and likely not worth the cost. So there's noting to really lose cleaning it up if it's not working well. The odds are on your side it will work great.
HP printers can be as cranky as AnY inkjet. Even the i560 hates to sit unused. All inkjets need regular use to keep them happy. I don't care who makes it. They all rely on liquid ink which when sitting long enough, starts to dry. Simple physics.
Printing a test page (two blinks) is easy, doesn't need a computer even connected, and excersies the printing plumbing. I try to do it at least every two weeks or so and everytime I have a print job I need to do and the printer has been idle for a few days.
One more thing. Try not to unplug the printer and always keep it powered when it's turned off. There are internal timers which keep track of idle time and perform different types of head cleaning automatically.
If the printer loses power, it loses the timers and you will then force it into doing a full cleaning cycle which consumes a significant amount of ink when it's not necessary.
Also avoid opening the cover often and for long times as this also gets timed by the printer and will cause a cleaning cycle due to the fact it has left the inkjets exposed to the air.
When parked, the jets are sealed by rubber covers when not in use keeping them moist.
Good luck.
