In progress C309g printhead cleaning feedback?

As many of you know, I've been going through my older guides I made years ago and either completely gotten them replaced or I have rewritten them. More often then not I am finding a rewrite is the most efficient solution to the problem, or writing the guides off due to age. This is primarily due to what I made these guides on back then. These days, this really isn't the case as the guides tend to "stick" better then they did back then.

I made some more private until I could figure out what I want to do with them, but this is one I made private and am choosing to salvage as-is, partially due to the fact it's one of the old guides that actually stuck. The guide in question is the Photosmart Premium C309g printhead cleaning guide I made to fix a problem with this printer when I had it. These days, I use a HP LJ Pro 400 M401n, and have given up on Inkjets almost entirely at this point so I really do not have the ability to replace these guide images just yet. However, what I can do has been done.

• As per the standard today, I use 20k reputation as a non patrol baseline. I chose this number, because it seems like a good balance of quality control since iFixit is crowd sourced repair information and letting people edit. It just means in order to patrol this, you also need 20k to do so. This is an updated change
• The intro has been rewritten to not be a complete mess anymore. I also kind of had to do this, since saving it would require correction. This was hand in hand. This is an updated change
• I have replaced a lot of the steps, due to some of the comments and "teenage mistakes" I'd rather not have reflect how I do things now. At one point, I made the mistake of putting a water bowl on the printer, and this obviously didn't go well. I now see why and I would rather disassociate with that mistake as best as I can. This is more of a new step, if anything
• Another step mentioned dish soap, which I see nothing good coming out of. This is why I mentioned alcohol instead. I know alcohol is safe. Dish soap probably destroys the printheads these use. Just like the water bowl on the printhead, this is a new step being used to update the old material
• Step 1 has new images 'This is an updated change
• For CMYK PK printers(5 color) I have added a new test. Instead of relying on the test page, I have chosen to use the NTSC color bars to test the PK Black. I know the test page the printer does this too, but this will push it beyond one thick line. I have also made this very clear that's only for 5 color models. This is to gauge the printhead's health, since people have said they had trouble in the past. Instead of trying to explain this may not work and to give a visual improvement to look at. These are all new steps
• For now unless I decide to keep this, I borrowed some images from the student written C309g guides. I think these will almost line up with my current format, which relies on posterboard. Because I do not see a guide that does this for the C309g specifically since mine was the only one and it reeked of my teenage days I have to find one of these printers to recreate those images.
• I have changed the name of the guide to reflect the nature of what it is for, and added that it's a last ditch fix to set expectations accordingly and to tell people the eWaste drive is not the end and that this could very well salvage the printer. This is probably going to work, but I believe in setting expectations accordingly. If they are willing to try this, they probably have given up on the printer in general so if this works they're happy it fixed the problem and now know to give a shot if it happens again. The guide comments reflect a 4 fix and 1 failed fix, if that's an indicator. This is a updated change

• When I can get a printer to clean this way again, I will replace the mono NTSC color bars filler image. I do not want to use another printer for this, as this is one of the things that people will use to try and recover one of these printers. You can't fake that with fillers from say, a Photosmart Plus ePrint model. That would give the wrong impression. If I have to settle on a CMYK model I will adjust the guide further to accurately reflect this.
• I will add more images as I go, too. This is just not going to be the quickest thing to finish, because I do not see these in mass since a lot of people threw them out when they needed ink, the places that have them expect too much money for this model.
• I will adjust the time range to reflect how long it took for the example I got in, and add at least 30 minutes to the time I get to cover for extreme clogging.

• I have no intention of replacing the kitchen coffee maker image. It's partially due to the fact it makes sense as it is, and it kind of keeps some of my early work intact, while still blending in as best as I reasonably can.

Anyway, if you're an admin you can see this. I am not making it public yet, since it's still a work in progress. I have added Mayer and Oldturkey03 as a precaution, and if you're in Master Techs, you can see it. This is more or less a limited preview, if you think about it. In regards to the gloves I may not use them, depending on how messy the printer I get is. I generally have less of a concern about ink on my hands, but I understand some people are worried. They're there to say I'm not for or against it, but if you have to use gloves that's okay. One of the biggest hurdles in making the rewrite work is the ink situation. If my experience tells me right, there's a VERY good chance I will need to buy some ink for the printer I get too. This may not be a complete burden since I can always get remanufactured ink instead, but I will have to look for ink that's not grossly overpriced to stick in the printer.

So I made one small change to the guide since I really want to focus on getting the details right before picking one up. I set the time to complete this fix to 2 hours and I may go up. Why did I pick 2 hours when this probably takes far less time?

• covers for really nasty clogging you can't quickly clean
• I don't like to take my time and reference that due to experience levels. While I can push these out in very little time that may not be as easy for another reader. It's best to look at it from a perspective of the novice with time for me.
• I don't know what is acceptable for a overestimate for this yet and I am playing with ideas. This is where I certainly think I can strike the balance between overestimating and real world reader time.

Well, I have a update on this. I managed to get a printer, but there's one thing about it I need to make clear. It's not a C309g, but it uses HP 564 ink at least. What I ended up with was a HP B210a. This is very, very similar to what I used in the guide, with one key difference that sold me on it. It doesn't use Photo Black.

What this means is I have to revise ever so slightly, change the model and then that's it for writing. I also need all new pictures and I need to source ink for this one since it was removed before I got it. That's okay, because I can probably get some ink refilled since I have a stock of it in a bag that just needs to be refilled. Hopefully I can get some of them refilled soon. I did write the guide this way, so I can change a few things as I need to do so and then I can change the model printer I use and was very intentional. I did this in case I had trouble finding another C309g~ as a plan B.

~I was able to find them, but they're not very common anymore. When you do people expect $50 or more for these things in a lot of cases, depending on the ink. If it's out it may be a freebie like how I got mine or very cheap but my budget I set for myself prevented that. I didn't want to pay to get one.