Digital BW, The Print

Jhonny and Lincoln,

Thanks very much for replying to my question. Just for the record, I
am using  a 1280. I will refill the cartridge again, this time making
sure I remove all the ink, as per Johnny's recomendation. 

I always thought that probably the ink monitor was not actually
measuring the amount of ink in the cartridge. Otherwise, adding ink to
a partially full cartridge would make the ink level go up, and
resetting the cartridge would not be necessary.

Thanks again!
Manuel 

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "glean_ideas"
<lincoln@f...> wrote:
> Manuel,
> 
> Some background information on the Epson ink monitor that may help 
> reduce confusion.
> 
> If you pop the chip off an Epson ink cartridge you'll only see a 
> little blob of epoxy. There are no wires or no sensors into the ink 
> well. The chip is used as a scratch pad by the Epson driver to 
> subtract the amount of ink that it estimates has been used, picoliter 
> by picoliter. You'll also notice that for the multi-color cartridges 
> the ink wells all drop uniformly. I believe the Epson driver is 
> subtracting the worst case amount. [I have an epson 2200 and I find 
> it amazing how vastly different the color consumption is for the 
> different colors. I was surprised to see that Lite Magenta and Lite 
> Cyan are most heavily used with Yellow being the slowest.]
> 
> There's a device which will reset the ink chips back to full to fool 
> the ink monitor so it will continue to work. There are also chips 
> that reset themselves when the power is turned off the printer.
> 
> Bottom line: You have to take with a grain of salt what the ink 
> monitor is estimating as the ink level. It does not necessarily 
> reflect reality.
> 
> I recently bought an Epson 1280 dedicated to black only printing. 
> Following Paul Roark's recommendation, I started off with the UT inks 
> in Epson-replacement cartridges to try it out. I liked them so I 
> ordered the CIS cartridges and UT ink bottles.
> 
> [I encountered a problem: the chips on the CIS cartridge were not 
> resetting on power down. MIS sent me new chips (pink substrate) that 
> worked fine. The non-resetting chips were on a green substrate.]
> 
> Your note does not state which printer and MIS cartridges you are 
> using. 
> 
> When I spoke to Bob Zeiger at MIS, he said that the two cartridges 
> are different. The CIS cartridges are simpler and depend on creating 
> an air bubble at the top to regulate ink flow. 
> 
> The Epson-replacement cartridges have a more convoluted path to 
> regulate flow and deter people from refilling them. It's more 
> difficult to force ink back into these, since the air vent is used to 
> limit air intake.
> 
> There's a guy in Hong Kong, Kui, that's analyzed Epson cartridges:
> 
> http://www.digital4to.com/
> 
> click on Introduction. This gave me a better way to visualize what's 
> going on.
> 
> It also helped me to conclude that I was better off using cartridges 
> that were engineered for continuos refilling. It's just easier to go 
> with the flow.
> 
> Hope this is useful.
> 
> Lincoln Fajardo
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Johnny Eades" 
> <jeades1@s...> wrote:
> > Hello Manuel,
> > 
> > It may not be the ink getting low, but the cartridge could have a 
> > buildup of foam so that when you filled the first refill and the 
> ink 
> > flowed out the vent hole appearing to be full, it was really not 
> > full. The overflow was foam buildup. Every other refill I always 
> use 
> > a large syringe and tape over the vent holes and draw out all the 
> > foam and ink inside the chamber before refilling.
> > 
> > Your friend in Photography,
> > 
> > Johnny Eades
> > 
> > 
> > --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Manuel Toledo 
> > <mtoledo@e...> wrote:
> > > Hello,
> > > 
> > > I have a problem with a MIS cartridge that I am using with the UT 
> > > inkset. The ink monitor tells me that the inks are 80% full, but 
> a 
> > > nozzle check shows no lines in the yellow position. I replaced 
> the 
> > > cardritge with an Epson original and noticed that the MIS 
> cartridge 
> > is 
> > > very light. All colors are fine with the Epson cartridge. I think 
> > that 
> > > in the MIS cartridge the yellow-position is empty and the others 
> > are 
> > > running low!
> > > 
> > > I refilled the cardridge a couple of weeks ago. Prior to that, 
> when 
> > it 
> > > was in the printer, the ink monitor was showing about 10%-20% ink 
> > for 
> > > all colors, but I started to get bad nozzle checks that were 
> > getting 
> > > worse (fast) with cleaning.  Originally I thought that it was 
> > clocking. 
> > > However, before refilling I extracted the remaining ink from the 
> > > cartridge. There was very little of it. So I thought that it was 
> > just 
> > > that the sensors where not reliable and that my bad nozzle checks 
> > were 
> > > due to insufficent ink in the cartridge.
> > > 
> > > However, now the cartridge seems to be empty again! Only about 
> two 
> > weeks 
> > > after reffiling the! During this time I think I have printed the 
> > > equivalent of perhaps  four 13x19in. pages only.
> > > 
> > > Can someone tell me if the capacity of these cartridges is this 
> > low? Or 
> > > perhaps the one I have is defective and should be replaced? I 
> > refilled 
> > > it once after filling it the first time.
> > > 
> > > Thanks in advance!
> > > 
> > > Your friend in photography,
> > > Manuel Toledo