Let me start with a little background. A month or so ago my black print head stopped printing right. It was streaking, and just wouldn't print. I did everything the support guy at brother could think of and nothing worked, so we finally bought a new head. About two weeks later the yellow started doing the same thing. I've since found out that other people have this problem, and it may be caused by mixing brother and sawgrass inks, without flushing the line first, or from syringing ink out of empty cartridges. I'm not sure which, but I did both things on the colors that went out.
Anyways, I didn't want to spend another grand on a new head again, and I had the old black head that was supposedly broken, so I decided to mess with it.
I read in another thread someone suggested using simple green, but they had never tried it on a brother head. I tried it, and it worked.
Heres what I did:
Materials: Syringe, simple green(SG), water, some kind of tube to make the syringe fit onto the head better.
-Dilute the SG, I didn't measure exactly how much, i just sprayed a little bit into water.
-let the head sit in the SG, no more than half an inch. You just need enough to cover the nozzles. Leave it for a few min.
-Swirl it around to break up any clogs(I don't know if this does anything, but it was in the instructions i followed)
-Use the syringe to push SG(diluted) through the print head. Keep doing this repeatedly until you can see all the nozzles spraying just the SG.
Repeat any steps as needed until it seems like the head is as clean as it'll get, then put it into the machine. After putting the head back in, I ran an initial cleaning, then about 7 or so powerful cleanings before it started printing completely right. Now it looks perfect though.
Note that you might not have to work as hard cleaning the head if you're using it for the same color. I was cleaning a black head to be used with yellow, so i needed to get all the black in off the head.
I hope this will help someone else who had this problem, and save you from buying a ridiculously expensive head when yours is still fine.
I brought my head back from the dead as well. We don't have SG here but some serious scrubbing with the wash fluid worked for me. The experts said my head was dead and needed replacement...
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I tried scrubbing with the wash fluid, but it didn't work. Mine had some serious clogging in it, but simple green did the trick. Maybe spraying the wash fluid through it would work to, i'm not sure though.
Brother offers a Head Recovery program for machines newer then 2 years old. for customers that don't qualify for this they sell a head service kit. it has plenty of cleaning solution, swabs, and syringe with a special filtered line.
brother offered no help. my machine is almost 3 years old, and we aren't the original owners of the machine, so they said there is no warranty on it.
as for a cleaning kit, why buy one from them when you can do the same thing for practically nothing?
I was just using a basic syringe, then about halfway through i used a silicone tube or something that was on the printhead when i bought it. It is just a plastic tube that will fit over the end of the syringe, and if it will fit over the top of the print head thats even better, mine was the same size as the hole for the print head but it still worked.
my colors weren't distorted ever.
I use both brother and sawgrass inks, and i don't think i've had a problem. I think my problem was from syringing ink, not the type of ink. I'm still using both brands at the same time right now, and it's working fine.
Hi, My name is Ricardo/Richard. Thanks for a your post. I think Im having a similar issue. My printer is acting up. It never gave me an issue until now. I do have about 35000 prints on it. I dont know what exactly caused the problem but I need to get it fixed. i know i did 2 things tha may have caused the problem. I injected ink into a cartridge from an almost empty one but then I switched to a new one. I dont use sawgrass ink juts brother. I also did an order of shirts that released too much dust I have a job to finish by next week. The printer prints lines on the black (actually all). I printed a nozzle check and all inks look bad. I dont know if I need to buy all priny heads or if something would do the fix. I have power cleaned all heads many times. It prints some nice designs but then it stars printing bad again. Please advise what to do. Thanks in advance. (PLEASE PARDON MY ENGLIHS) Thanks again
Fix Print Heads Easily 
I have a job to finish by next week. The printer prints lines on the black (actually all). I printed a nozzle check and all inks look bad. I dont know if I need to buy all priny heads or if something would do the fix. I have power cleaned all heads many times. It prints some nice designs but then it stars printing bad again. Please advise what to do. Thanks in advance. (PLEASE PARDON MY ENGLIHS) Thanks again
