Cleaning cards for Dymo Labelwriter Printers

When you have printing problems with a Dymo LabelWriter label printer, one of the first things technical support will suggest is to run a cleaning card through it a few times, to clear any dirt/dust from the print head and/or label sensor.

You do get one of these supplied free with your printer when you buy it, so well done if you kept it and can remember where it is, but otherwise you could be out of luck.

The regular cleaning cards used to be available to purchase, but have since been discontinued so are no longer available, and the 4XL cleaning cards were never available separately.  So what do you do if you can't find the cleaning card?  Well, here are Dymo's instructions on how to create your own!

1. Unplug the printer from the computer (USB). Leave the power cord attached.
2. Pull up the lid and remove the labels
3. Then you take off the front cover of the printer
4. Be gentle when you remove the front cover of the printer
5. When the front cover is off,  use a business card with some pure alcohol on it and run this through the machine a few times. If the machine is dirty, you will see the card become black. Run another one or through until the printer is cleaned.
6. When done, put the front cover back on.
7. Make sure that the front cover is flush on all sides. You should hear a small click when you have attached the front back on and it's flush on all sides.
8. Plug in the printer again and try to print a label