Digital BW, The Print

>Rob asked, "Reading you post it seems to me that it's cumbersome to use
self resetting chips. Is one type of a self resetting chip better than
other? Which ink are you using and how it compares to OEM ink? Is it better
to use OEM carts and refill them and how would you do that? Do I need to
clean those carts?"

 

Rob, these are good questions.  Personally, I don't find them harder to use.
I just keep a syringe with a blunt needle for each color  emersed in a cup
of water next to the printer when I am doing heaver printing.  When I
suspect the inks are getting low, I put the printer in the "change
cartridge" position, pull out the plus in the carts and squirt in more ink.
I whip the ink off the syringe, put it back in the water and suck in about 1
cc of water to keep the syringe moist, and start printing.  Before I use the
syringe again, I blow out the squirt the watrer into a waste basket that
usually has plenty of paper to absorb the water (being lazy), push and pull
the syringe a few times to dry out the syringe, and them use it again.  When
the water in the cup shows any color, I change it.  I've had no problems
with cross contaimination that I've been able to see.

 

Doing it this this way avoids having multiple sets of spare carts I used to
have to avoid having to clean the syringe everytime.  Some times the extra
carts would sit too long during periods of low usage.  I even saw some
settling inside the carts.  Ink is only in the bottle or cart and I try to
remember to shake the bottles once a week to prevent settling. 

 

As for your questions, I've never used the chips that reset when you cycle
power.  They may eliminate the need to track how much you've printed, which
would be nice.  If not, I see no difference between the two.  As I said,
once you get used to tracking the amount printed, it's not hard.

 

I use ink from InkJetCats.us which is manufactured by Image Specialists.  As
far as I know they and Cone are the only good aftermarket ink manufacturers.
Any good supplier of after market inks is selling Image Specialist inks and
just rebranding them.  Ask and they'll usually be happy to tell you since
Image Specialist has an established reputation for quality.  I know of no
one reporting good results using any ink that cannot be traced to these two
manufacturers.   At $12/4 oz bottle, why try any other manufacturer?

 

I've never tried to refill newer Espon carts, but I not heard anyone say
they are easier to refill than after market refillable carts.  If you read
the instructions to refill Epson carts, it sure sound harder.  In fact, they
design tehm so you can't!  They want you to buy only new carts from them.
If you did, yes, you'd need to clean them out to avoid incompatibility
problems and that is not easy.

 

One last note, Tyler says you can't disable the Epson status monitor in
Mac's.  You can with Windows.  To me, this is important.  Maybe some one
else can comment about this.

 

Tyler, I'm working on an response to your post.  I may have an explanaton
for the behaior you are seeing.

 

Bob

 



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