[ELECTRON] epson inkjet

[Ross Feilen]

Nina,

I think the big fault with the Epson inkjets is their propensity to  
clog up when the slightest thing goes wrong (particularly when the ink  
dries out), so it's probably conservatism on the part of the  
manufacturer in deliberately making sure ink can't run out when  
changing cartridges.

Though I own an R285 and they use slightly different cartridges I'm  
sure they will also contain a microchip which remembers how much ink  
has been used (by counting the amount of droplets when printing) and  
these are why you can't refill your ink tanks by putting more in the  
cartridge or fool the printer into thinking you have put new ones in  
to use up the last bit of ink.

Gordon's right - I have a continuous ink system which uses large tanks  
outside the printer which connect through rubbery tubes and a special  
cartridge head into where the ink tanks should go. This means I top up  
the large tanks from bottles when they go low, and there is no taking  
in and out cartridges at all - that's when the highest risk of nozzle  
clogging happens. I still have the problem of the printer thinking the  
ink is out but when that happens I switch off the printer and press a  
button on the special cartridge head which 'resets' the chip and then  
the printer thinks the ink has been changed when turned on again. The  
tanks hold 100ml of ink per colour and original cartridges something  
like 17ml, so you can do the sums on how much longer things go between  
refills.

It's not perfect and the continuous ink system took some fiddling  
about to install. You can't move the printer around much as it's  
attached to tubes and tanks sitting on the desk. You're advised to  
print regularly (weekly at least) to keep ink moving through the  
system. But it's much cheaper than original cartridges and once in  
arguably easier to maintain. I find these days I don't even worry  
about what the ink costs at all which is a very nice feeling!

Hope this advice is useful,

Ross


On 31 May 2009, at 11:22am, Gordon JC Pearce wrote:

> On Sun, 2009-05-31 at 09:48 +0000, makerfair wrote:
>> I have an Epson photo R300 inkjet printer which seems to be forcing  
>> me
>> to change cartridges when there is clearly audibly ink still in them.
>> I cannot seem to force it to go on printing. Any bright suggestions  
>> to
>> over come this?
>>
>> Regards
>> Nina Baker
>>
>>
>
> Ross from SOLDER group has some groovy ink tank thing for his photo
> printer that takes about 100ml per tank and has a reset button on the
> printhead.  Basically the chip inside the head determines when the  
> tank
> is "empty" based on the number of squirts - so even if there's ink  
> left
> it can shut down the head.  Having a reset button lets the printer  
> think
> it's a fresh cartridge.  The thing is called something like "infinite
> ink" (but that brings up a tattooing site, so I could be wrong).
>
> Gordon