Printer Cleaning Kit for Brother MFC DCP Printers - 5 oz | Easy to use kit to Clear Printer nozzles

UPDATE As noted below, this product worked well for us. However, it can't make an old printer young. Besides clogged heads, there are several parts on an older printer that can go bad, or get fouled, or otherwise go wrong. I think we ran into that fact, soon after writing that earlier review. So, it was great at first, but we probably only got a few weeks of normal printing before it started going bad again. At that point, cleaning with this product did not help anymore. Clearly the printer needed more fixing or maintenance than we could do, and given its age, there was no point even dreaming about repair. At present it is relegated to scanning only and we had to buy a new (laser) printer. I'd still recommend this cleaning kit, though, because it does work. And your printer may not have the other issues we ran into, especially if it is younger. Just keep expectations in perspective. ----- ORIGINAL REVIEW This kit worked well on a Brother MFC J-6920DW. Recently, in the middle of a project it suddenly stopped printing any color. Several cycles of head cleaning and test prints emptied the ink but did not help. Replacing all four cartridges did not help. Internet searches came up with various solutions, one with canned air. That did nothing for us but make a huge mess. I do not recommend it! Eventually I found this kit and others like it. The reviews, and the vendor’s helpful hints and video (and guarantee) made us choose this. Here are the tips that helped make it work for us, on this model printer. 1) Use the long tube not the short one. Besides needing it for the cleaning, you will also need this tube to load the syringe with cleaning fluid, since the syringe won’t fit in the bottle. The tube is a tight fit onto the syringe, which is a good thing. Be patient. 2) Warm up the whole bottle of fluid, not just the syringe. That way you can leave the tube on the syringe and skip using the cap; plus, if you need to reload, the fluid is already warm. 3) On this printer the clearance is tight, and it will be hard to mount the cleaning tube onto the printer ink fittings using your fingers. Use long-nose pliers or similar tool to hold the end of the flexible tube and push it well onto each of the printer’s ink intake fittings. It will be a tight fit – which is good, it will prevent leaks. Again, be patient. 4) The kit included “blotter paper” but no instructions for it. We just used paper towel, two layers folded, under the printer head. This made a tight fit when sliding the print head over it, but soaked up all the ink and fluid. It might be better to use one layer folded, to give the head more clearance even if it might leave a little cleanup afterward. You want to avoid damaging the head and nozzles! 5) I moved the head a couple of inches a little after cleaning each color, over a clean section of paper. Besides keeping one spot on the towel from over-saturating, this also made it easier to see when each color ink was being successfully flushed out. 6) I removed all four cartridges before starting, but did not bother cleaning the black ink tube since it had been working okay. This was a gamble, but turned out to be correct in our situation. 7) I cleaned out the entire cartridge area, especially drying any remaining ink or fluid, before reinserting the cartridges. 8) Right after reinstalling the ink, I did a test print, and saw color again. After that, I ran three regular cleaning cycles and test prints. The coverage actually decreased at first, which I think was fluid or air being purged from the lines, but then improved again and by the third round the test print was normal. 9) Checking it a day later, I think I notice a couple of recurring blank squares in the test prints – out of the many hundreds in the pattern. It does not affect the quality of actual prints somehow, which is why I don’t care. And compared to having no color at all, this is fantastic. If I were to do this again I might change out the paper after one pass, and do each tube again. But this is probably unnecessary if you have a newer machine than ours. Overall, I found this process straightforward and very successful. There were no huge surprises and – so far – the result has been as good as I’d hoped. Users who are not accustomed to tinkering or fixing things might not find it as “easy” as I did, but if they trust the instructions and take their time, they should be okay. We are very satisfied and relieved. We recommended this kit if you have similar symptoms on a similar printer.

This was an effective cleaning kit for my stopped up MFC-J470DW printer. Bought it used and it printed NOTHING. Multiple cleanings with new cartridges didn't even print on spot on the paper. Per the seller, it had not been used for a long time and was stored with cartridges in it (Arrived with cartridges about 1/2 full). I followed the instructions I found online on how to get the print head out of the home/locked position. Put a rolled up paper towel 'pad' under the print head and proceeded to SLOWLY put the cleaning fluid through the lines. Important to cycle the syringe forward and back to dissolve and move any clogs in the lines. Put the cartridges back in and tried a couple print quality attempts. Actually started to get small amts of color and black dots on the paper. Repeated the process two more times. I really didn't get the 'flood' of cleaning fluid the online videos showed. The paper towel was soaked with diluted ink coming out of the print head. Third cleaning resulted in almost perfect printing so I did two cleaning cycles from the printer control panel. Very good print quality. It did eat up almost a full set of cartridges (still in the printer now) but a small price to pay for a fully functional printer.

Like most new tasks, there is a learning curve here. After a couple of false starts, and making some messes, the product worked great. My printer is working 100% now, so it was well worth it. Some comments/suggestions: - The instructions could be clearer, and more detailed. Example: I found that I needed to hold the hose to the ink receptacle. On some ink wells, the hose would pop off, and the cleaning fluid would spray the inside of the printer. I also learned to SLOWLY press the syringe. - An old towel or paper towel should be placed UNDER the printer, to catch any of these spills. - More blotter paper is needed. It works better than paper towel, but there are only 2 small sheets. Blue shop paper towels work better than kitchen paper towels, too. - Remove all paper from the MFC-495. The cleaning fluid and ink spilled into the paper tray, and soaked through all sheets. Paper towel in the trays would be a good idea. - I had replaced all the ink cartridges before I started. By the end of the process, 2 of the cartridges were empty This is from using the built in cleaning cycles. Be aware of this. There was also an issue with me, not following the instructions. I only let the cleaning fluid soak for a few minutes the first 2 attempts. The 3rd time I let soak for several hours, after re-reading the instructions. I could see a great improvement after the longer soak. A couple of cleaning cycles (using the built in print head cleaning, via the control panel), and it was back to printing perfect test sheets. The printer I was working on, is probably an extreme case. The previous tenants let all the colors go empty, and the machine was left sitting, unused, for at least several months. Based on other evidence in the house (AC filters, fridge filters), the colors could have been dry for as long as 4 years. The path was messy, but the result was better than I expected. Good product, good price.

I had a really bad printer head clog that couldn't be fixed with the head-cleaning routine on the printer. I bought the Printer Hospital Kit for this Brother Printer but was sent the kit for an Epson, which is missing the larger tube required. I called the customer service number and the very helpful owner of the company answered and suggested I get the Brother adapter kit, which costs about $5, and offered to reimburse me. However, I had some plastic tubing (from a hardware store) that fit the ink inlet tube and another piece that fit the 10-mL syringe. I added some SuperGlue to the outside of the smaller piece and inserted it into the larger piece to provide a leakproof junction. (I did the same with the plastic tubing in the adapter kit when it came.) I cut the joined piece to size, making sure that the larger segment was long enough (about 1") to fit completely on the ink inlet tube of the printer and the smaller end of my homemade tube just poked out of the ink compartment. (The inlet tubes on the printer are visible when you pull out the ink cartridges.) Following the directions in the Printer Hospital kit, I used a 1 1/2"-wide double thickness of a paper towel and inserted it under the print head. (I fashioned a little push rod from a piece of coat-hanger wire to force the paper towel under the head.) I then attached my makeshift delivery tube to the first of the ink inlet tubes on my printer, making sure that my delivery tube was all the way onto the inlet tube. While preparing the printer, I filled the 10-mL syringe provided in the kit with cleaning solution and put it into a cup of water that had been heated to boiling in a microwave. I then attached the loaded syringe fully to the smaller tube and SLOWLY pushed about 2 mL of the hot cleaning solution into the ink inlet tube. I repeated this with the other colors. I then removed the paper towel used for blotting and could see that all of the colors had bled onto the towel. I replaced the ink cartridges, turned on the printer, and ran the head-cleaning routine (under "Tools" on the Printer Menu). This revealed that the head cleaning worked. I then hooked up the printer to my computer and printed a file that I created with Adobe Illustrator with 1" squares of magenta, cyan, and yellow outlined in black. These printed with no white lines. NOTE: I read on the internet that one could use Windex as a cleaning solution. After running the above procedure with the Printer Hospital solution, I used an ammonia-free glass cleaner (Meyer's Clean Day Glass Cleaner) in the same procedure, and it worked beautifully. This is a great way to rejuvenate the clogged print head on your Brother MFC-J995DW Printer.

looks like a great product but will not work on Brother MFC-J1205w. there isn't a way to get to the print head without complete disassembly of the printer and secondly the ink ports wouldn't take any fluid to allow a flush even with no access to the print head. Just sharing so others dont waste their money.

Followed the instructions exactly and it did not work on my brother MFC-J880DW after two tries. After a few days I lost the cleaning solution bottle so I thought what the heck, don't have anything to loose so I tried the same procedure using ordinary window cleaner (since the cleaning solution smells more or less like window cleaner). Still no luck. After a few more days, and shopping for new a new printer, I tried one more last-ditch effort using straight, undiluted 70% warmed-up isopropyl alcohol following the same procedure as before, only this time it worked!! After cleaning with alcohol I ran a few test prints of the solid-color PDFs referenced in the kit (you can find these test prints easily on your own) to get the ink flowing. Seems my print head had an especially bad clog (maybe since I was using 3rd party ink to reduce the cost). Lots of people out there probably wouldn't recommend straight alcohol but it worked in my case and did not damage the printer which has continued to work without any problems for 3 weeks now. For the cost of this kit you get a 10 ML syringe with a semi-flexible tube that resembles silicone fuel tubing used for glow fuel powered RC aircraft (although silicon tubing is softer and might even work better). You also get a small bottle of cleaning liquid that is probably worth about 25 cents at most, and some 5 cent gloves that I didn't use. You also get some pretty good instructions that give you the courage to go where you've never gone before with your printer which is injecting foreign fluids into your printer's ink lines and print head. At first I was extremely careful but in the end, not having much to loose, just loaded it with alcohol and it cleared what was apparently dried ink clogging the print head.

The product worked great. My only issue was that the tubing that came with it...........although it fit the ink tanks............the tubing was too soft.... So, I had to use needle nose pliers to place the tubing onto the tanks. Not a deal breaker, but you better have some way to get your big fingers into the tank area. For me, the pliers worked fine. For next time, i will get a stiffer hose so i will not need the pliers. Some issues......and hints......... Do wear the gloves, for you will get ink on your hands. I didn't think i needed gloves, and found out otherwise. Not a lot of ink....but my hands were not clean when done. Blotter paper was included with the package. Unfortunately, i did not see it until I was all done. For me, I used paper towels to absorb the ink. Also, I found that you do not need to shut off the machine while it prints in order to get the print head in the middle of the print bar. After you open the printer, use your right hand, and push your right index finger UNDER the place wher the print head is resting. If you use paper towels as I did, you will find that you can push the print head in only one direction to go over the towels. So, if you find it is getting caught.....you are moving the print head in the wrong direction. I think right to left is the way it works best. But, since I'm all done, I'm not totally sure.... I found that it worked well to put one piece of the paper towel under the print head..... more than one just did not work for me. Then, I placed a wad of towels on BOTH the left and right side of the print head. This way, the ink would be absorbed, and would wick up the extra towels. During the cleaning I removed the wads of inked up towels and replaced with clean ones. I also found that as you push the plunger in and out, you will begin to HEAR the ink come out of the print head ; sort of a gurgling sound. It took me 4 times of cleaning the printer via the cycle on the printer before my print was perfect.

I bought some discounted refilled ink cartridges that clogged the printhead on my Brother printer. (Amazon has that review in purgatory so don't look in my profile for inks I have reviewed for it). My brother printer is only a year old, but after researching a clogged printhead I learned you can't just buy a part. You buy a new printer. This was $18 and a new printer is $150. I tried the less expensive option with the idea if it didn't work I would buy a new printer. It worked! I followed the included instruction sheet except I only used paper towels under the print head instead of the blotting paper. I read that if you use blotting paper you have to change it often and paper towel you can do the full 4 ounces. I used quite a few paper towels when I cleaned mine. There was a lot of ink on the bottom of the printhead before I added any cleaner - which didn't surprise me since I had used the feature to clean the print head a lot of time trying to get the ink cartridges to work well. Filling the syringe was difficult. I wish the bottle was shaped differently or they had one of those valve things you can get from the pharmacy for kdis liquid medicine. The liquid smelled strongly of ammonia so when I spilled some on my shirt, I ran to the bathroom and rinsed it out. Ammonia can bleach out color in some dyes, so be careful if you spill. I ended up cleaning only my black cartridge, then printing a bunch of pages from the website included in the instructions. Initially it was coming out really faded, but not skipping lines like it had before. It took most of a new ink cartridge to prime the black ink completely, but it now prints perfectly again. I am glad I went with the hospital and saved myself from buying a new printer to replace a barely used one.

Funcionar funciona, aunque utilizas la décima parte de bote, por lo tanto es carísimo, casi tanto como la sangre de unicornio. Al precio que van las impresoras de inyección merecerá la pena el gasto dependiendo del cariño que tengas a tu impresora. Creo que las instrucciones son complicadas para lo que es el proceso en si.

To help others, this review includes specific information as to how the product solved a problem with my printer: The printer in question is the Brother MFC-J5330DW which is approximately 6 months old and has been used daily, primarily for office type work. After-market (extra large capacity) print cartridges have been used for all 4 colours. In recent weeks the black print nozzles have been blocking, leading to missing lines and feint print etc. The other colours have been fine. The on board software cleaning method worked fine in so far as it soon restored perfect printing. However, the Big issue was that within literally 2 to 3 pages of work, the nozzles were blocking up again, so something was definitely not okay, and it started to get very irritating having to constantly go through the self clean cycles etc, only for the problem to recur so quickly. Before taking this printer to the local recycling centre, I purchased this print head cleaning kit. I followed the instructions included and the on line video tutorials to the letter and in summary, this printer is now working back to 100% reliability, which is such a relief. For those wanting to know a little more about my experience using this kit, I would add the following: I used my own kitchen paper wrapped in several folds to catch the cleaning solution/ink residue etc. When I manually moved the print head over the fresh paper, even before using the cleaning solution, I was amazed at how much black “graphite” looking residue deposited itself onto the paper. This I strongly suspect, was the cause of the problems. Surprisingly, but thankfully, the injection of the cleaning fluid required hardly any pressure through the syringe. I injected the solution very slowly as it quickly soaks the kitchen paper towel below the head. After injecting a bit of the solution, I kept manually moving the print head gently back and forth, moving it to a clean bit of paper towel as necessary, and repeating. I then left the solution in for about 90 minutes, before completing the process. After reinserting a new Black cartridge, the test print initially showed some missing black lines, which was disheartening. However, the instructions did say that it may require up to 4 of the printer’s own cleaning cycle to complete the process. Thankfully after 3 self cleans, the test print was free of missing lines. Importantly, this printer has since done lots of printing with zero issues, all working fine. In conclusion, I have to say that this excellent product, combined with great customer instructions/support, delivered exactly what it promised, and I have retained the remaining solution for when the process needs repeating at sometime in future. For me this kit scores 10 out of 10.

Kit reçu au complet, conforme à la description. Après utilisation de celui-ci j'ai pu réutiliser mon imprimante. Produit recommandé

Great service and product

Had this inkjet for a long time. Wanted to upgrade to a laser printer, but would be stepping down to black and white for my budget level. With COVID this year, schools have gone more electronic, so really haven't had to print out anything for the kids yet. Black on my old printer started to fade to the point of being unusable. Decided to give this a shot. Ease of use? Pretty easy! Depending on your printer model, I found using a pair of needle nose pliers to get the tube onto the nipple really worked wonders. I have read about negative reviews and my experience does make me sympathize with them. Performed the clean on the black, and as per the instructions, I decided to leave the cleaning solution in overnight. Following this, I could not get black to print. Cleaned the heads multiple times, etc. Nothing. Decided to do it again but this time start to go through the cleaning/test print process almost right away (so there was solution/pressure in the lines). Again, very little printing going on, but I kept at it, doing two to three cleaning cycles and then a test print. Overall, I had to work for about 30-45min of cleaning/test prints. Fresh ink finally started to flow and I have full print capability back. In the end, it took a little more effort than I thought, but I am happy with the outcome; and in the end that's what is important. I doubt that this will work miracles, but for simple head cleaning, this kit has all your need to perform the task.