Printer Heads: How To Clean Without Wasting Ink

[Greg Purvis]

Hi

Is there a way to clean printer heads from the outside, rather than 
allowing so much ink to be wasted by the machine blowing the ink through 
the heads to clean them.
(This must be in a FAQ.  I just need to be pointed to where this has 
been discussed a thousand times already.)

A bit of background:
I have an Epson CX6600 printer/scanner that has suddenly quit printing. 
The company sent the machine to me to replace an earlier model that 
developed the same problem.
Maybe this machine has the same problem, or maybe it just needs head a 
more aggressive cleaning. 
I've "blown the jets" a few times, using over half the ink in the 
cartridges to do it, and the machine still barely leaves an image on the 
paper.

(I keep a towel over my printers when I don't use them, and no one 
smokes in the house.)

I'm hoping to avoid taking the time to crate and ship this machine as 
well.  I'm not really interested in another replacement anyway.


Thanks in advance for any help.

Greg P.