Digital BW, The Print

Paul:

While you are doing all this research, perhaps you could come up with an answer I've long been asking.

What is the difference between 'auto-reset' chips and chips that need resetting? Also, if you have 'auto-reset' chips, which I think I do, can they ever be used in a way that provides reliable levels checking?

My experience with the MIS carts is that they never need any kind of re-setting, but they don't accurately read the cartridge level either.

Homer Shannon

Hello Homer, nice to see you here!

I must say I'm in the same position you are. My first task is to at least get my carts recognized in my 1400. Then I'll deal with these ARC carts. I really would prefer manual reset carts, but it turns out I ran across a website that sells a manual resetter for ARC cartridges! Check this out (click on the highlighted blue link toward the bottom.)

http://www.precisioncolors.com/E6B_79.html

Had a chat with someone at their company, might have been their president, and he was very cordial. They're based in Toronto. He assured me these would work.

Hope this helps,

Paul

Great news, everyone! My third set of carts from MIS arrived today and they were recognized right away. These arrived empty (the others were prefilled with the Eboni-6 inkset) and Justin at MIS suggested I fill them with cleaning fluid, which I did. I didn't want to install them dry (my scale hasn't arrived yet so I couldn't mix up my Carbon-6). I added a small amount of Magenta Dye ink so's to make the nozzle check visible - the patterns were quite faint of course but visible with no breaks.

This set of carts was from a new batch they just got it. Justin feels it was not an issue on version numbers of the carts and firmware, but a physical issue, ie the chip was not making good contact with the bronze wires at the rear of the cartridge holder. I tend to agree with that. At last I'm a happy camper. Justin and Mathew over at MIS were diligent and patient to work with me to solve this problem.

I've ordered an Ohaus scale and as soon as that arrives I'll mix up some Carbon-6. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to empty the carts so the red dye doesn't show up in the various shades of grey? I can remove most of it with a syringe, and once they're filled with the various greys perhaps the remaining red will wash on through.

Anyway, it's a been a long haul and I thank everyone in the Group over the past few months as well as MIS for their suggestions and for putting up with my frustrations at times!

Regards,

Paul

John,

I assume you mean the resetter I mentioned a few messages back, the one sold by Precision Colors? Hmm, I just assumed it would work on MIS carts. Maybe that's a false assumption. I'll try and get that question to them later on today, in a bit of a crunch at the moment.

Thanks for raising that question!

As for MIS, I think we all hope they make it!

Paul

I e-mailed Precision Colors and asked if their resetter would work on MIS carts. It seems to be an issue of the chip's version number, not whether or not it's sold by MIS. Here's the answer I received:

"No the 6.3 chips have a master slave relationship. Black is master and keeps track of all the other chips being the slaves. All the slaves are identical BTW. The resetter will only work on the chips that can stand for themselves inside the Printer. V6.0 and 5.0 These emulate each Epson chip by itself and can be used amongst Epson chips. Only the first production run of 1430s were able to use the V6.0. Thereafter Epson put an end to that...all subsequent production runs required V6+ chips."

What's interesting is that I ordered a set of carts from Inkjet Mall and their version number was 6.0.

Paul