Have you ever been in the middle of a big project and desperately needed to print something only to find my printer wont print black? You hit print, and all that comes out is a faded grey mess. If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone – countless users have faced this issue before. In this blog post, we’ll discuss what could be causing your printer problems so you can get back on track with your projects quickly and easily.
Colour Printers
Colour printers are widely used for printing black and colour prints of prepared documents. Small boxes, the make-up of plastic, are used to keep the ink used for printing the documents. These printers are mostly known as inkjet printers because their printing head showers the tiny dots of coloured and black ink on the paper to form a character.
Printers also print colour photos on plain, simple, or specific photographing paper. These printers are less expensive, and their PPM (Print Per Minute) speed is also very slow. That’s why these printers are not used as heavy-duty commercial printers due to their slow speed and small size of the cartridge containing less ink which gets consumed very fastly in dense picture quality.
LaserJet printers mostly come with only black cartridges, but coloured printers are also available, which are more costly than black LaserJet printers. Mostly LaserJet printers are used for commercial and heavy printing with high-speed printing (PPM).
After LaserJet, line printers are specifically used in these organizations where printing requirements are very high, like billing departments of Public Electric Supply Companies, landline Telephone Companies, etc. But line printers are used for printing only black documents, and colour options are not available in these fast and heavy-duty printers.
Problems in printing black
Sometimes different problems are faced during the printing of documents. One can be that black text is not getting printed, or anything in black on any picture is also not getting printed. This situation can be very annoying for the user. There can be different reasons for this problem. Most of these can be solved at home by using printing software. The following are different reasons black colour prints are not getting printed from a printer.
Level of ink in the cartridge
The first and initial check required to troubleshoot this problem is checking the ink level in the respective cartridge. In colour printers, different colours are supplied in different small plastic boxes, and all these 3 or 4 boxes are placed in a single container. But each box of these can be pulled out separately. So black cartridge is also required to pull from that container and can check the ink level by shaking. Otherwise, the printer utility program can be used to check the ink levels in different cartridges of that printer. If the ink level is very low in the cartridge or even if that cartridge is empty, black text or other black-coloured objects are not getting printed.
After getting confirmed, replace that black cartridge with another new one so that the document can also get started printing black colour. On the other hand, the second solution is the local filling of ink in that cartridge because refilling ink is also available for almost all printers.
The sticky strip on the card of a cartridge
Suppose you purchased a new cartridge and recently installed that newly purchased ink box in the printer, after which black-coloured print is not getting printed. In that case, another cause of this problem can be a sticky strip placed on the electrical circuit of that cartridge. Pull out that cartridge, check the circuit, and remove the protective sheet to solve this issue. After this, again install that cartridge in the main socket.
Cartridge nozzle blockage
In inkjet printers, the nozzle of each cartridge is used to print the text or other on the paper. The nozzle is a tiny aperture on the cartridge from which ink is showered on the paper to form the character of the text and other objects. If a printer is not used for many days, these nozzles become blocked with the tiny drop of ink used last time.
Different printer utilities are available which can be used to clear that nozzle from blockage, but it is the case in which a printer can require to bring to some mechanic shop to clear that blocked nozzle; otherwise, the whole cartridge can be required to replace with a new.
Alignment of printer
It is also possible that all the cartridges and printing heads of the printer will be perfect in condition, but the print is still without black ink. Then also, check the position of the printer because it can also cause this problem. The ink cartridge in these printers slides on a straight iron rod with an attached think data cable. If the placement of the printer is not straight, then maybe the black cartridge is not coming in contact with the paper, due to which black is getting missed in print. So change the placement of the printer and keep the printer on a straight surface so that cartridges can move in a quite straight direction.
PrintHead problem
After doing all the measures mentioned above with cartridges, if the problem persists, you must check the printer’s PrintHead because PrintHead can also be congested or blocked. Blocking of PrintHead is also a common problem in these printers.
PrintHead also has nozzles that can get blocked, due to which printing problems can occur. To remove this problem, you can try different options in the printer’s utility program, like ‘head cleaning.’ If the problem is not getting over with these options, you can remove that PrintHead from the printer and clean it manually. Consult a mechanic if you cannot remove the PrintHead from the printer.
Final Words
These were different possible problems for which black printing could be stopped, but these causes are not limited to those stated here.
Many other possibilities are existed, due to which this can also happen. So try these; if the problem is still ongoing, consult your vendor to fix the problem.
