Cleaning cartridges contain a powerful cleaning fluid that is specially formulated to flush out inkjet inks and dissolve dried ink deposits. Designed to clean both aqueous pigment and dye based inks, cleaning cartridges are used in a printer just like a normal cartridge. Cleaning cartridges can be used for two purposes:

• Firstly, they are an invaluable routine maintenance aid and regular use will ensure that a printer is kept in top working order by cleaning dried ink deposits from the print head, capping station and wiper blade.
• Secondly, they should always be used when changing ink types on a printer if the two ink sets can not be mixed with each other. This is particularly important when changing to inks that have a different color gamut than the existing inks. The reason for this is that mixing two types of ink in a printer will effect color accuracy and can cause color shifts over a long period of time as one ink is slowly purging out the other. Using cleaning cartridges in between the two ink types will ensure that the new ink is not effected by the previous ink. It is absolutely essential that cleaning cartridges are used when changing from dye inks to pigment inks, or visa versa, as dyes and pigments don't generally mix together well and can create gel which will block a machine's print heads. There are two methods for using cleaning cartridges dependent on printer type. For wide format printer models, the machine's built in 'initial fill' routine or power cleaning function can be used to purge the cleaning fluid through out the ink system.