BleepingComputer.com: Where Does It Go?

Here's a dumb question.

Where does all that ink go when you use the nozzle cleaning utility for inkjet printers? I have an Epson Stylus Photo 960 and when I clean the printer nozzles it uses ink to do that and that's pretty expensive cleaning, you know? Now, the blue nozzles appear to be clogged. I have had this printer for about 4 years. Could it be that there is a big glob of ink stuck in the printer?
I have used isopropyl alcohol to unclog it before but it seems to clog more often these days so I thought that maybe there's a build up somewhere.

Peace

Hi motormom.
It's not a dumb question.
When you run the cleaning process, the waste ink is pumped to a waste ink "pad" inside your printer.
This "waste" ink is counted and when it reaches a preset number, you'll get a maintenance error indicating the pad has reached it's limit. The only real cleaning you can do with that printer, besides running the built-in cleaning function, is to remove the printhead itself and soak it in warm water for a period. Do not soak it in alcohol. There will also be a purge tube that you will want to make sure is not clogged or damaged.
You can avoid a lot of cleaning and wasted ink by simply leaving the printer powered up all the time. It's not going to hurt it or raise your electric bill. If you print something in color, even something small, once or twice a week, you'll probably never even have to use the cleaning function at all.

EDIT: BTW, I have the full 191 page service manual for the 950, which you can use for the 960. It shows complete dis-assembly, maintenance,etc. If you want it, just pm me with your e-mail addy. It's a compressed pdf around 10mb in size.

Another possibility - rare, but not impossible - would be if the ink cartidge was old enough, some of the carrier fluid (the liquid that evaporates, leaving the printed image in ink behind), may have evaporated away. This would leave the remaining ink with a higher concentration of pigment to carrier fluid that the orfices of the ink jet was designed to handle, leading to more frequent clogs.

Thanks Hitsquad for the manual. I followed the directions and cleaned the printerhead with warm water and got it pretty clean. I even was able to reaasemble the printer and it seams to get instructions from the computer but I only get lines, black lines. the service manual speaks of certain adjustments that have to be done. I have found out that it takes a special "adjsutment program" to do this. I cannot find the program on line, not even on the Epson site! Does anyone have, or know where I can find an adjustment program for the Epson Stylus Photo 960?

Thanks from a motormom with a spanking clean printer that can't print.

Hi motormom.
In your advanced printer options you should have an Epson maintenance utility similar to the one below:

Thanks Hitsquad I am familiar with the maintenance utility. My printer no longer properly communicates with that utiliy. At every request for it to print, It now does a head cleaning and nothing else. The service manual says that an adjustment of the platen gap, head angular and the Bi-D should be made after the printhead has been removed. In searching for the meaning of Bi-D I found that Epson includes a floppy disk containing the Service adjustment program with the service manual. I have found a service progarm (sp950_960) for the printer but I cannot find a manual to tell me what the values should be.
I really feel frustrated. It appears that the mechanical aspect of the printer works but I have no way of testing it because of the software preventing it