Digital BW, The Print

Here are a couple of points that may help those of us using self-
resetting chips.

1) There are two types of self-resetting chips - those that reset 
when you cycle the power (usually the oulder type) and those that 
reset themselves when they go below a certain level.  If you have the 
later type, disable the Espon status monitor or else you printer may 
stop printing when the INDICATED levels get too low.  Disabling the 
Epson monitor will allow you to print throught the low level 
indication until the chip resets itself.

2) You cannot mix OEM, self-resetting, or manual reset chips.  All 
chips installed should be the same type.  The printer will usually 
report a bad cartridge or "cannot recognize cartridge" message if 
chips are mixed.

3) Because self-resettng chips reset themselves, you never need to 
remove the cartridge from the printer and risk getting air in the 
jets.  Just refill the carts in the printer.  This is the biggest 
reason to use this type of chip.  I had more problems with air in the 
R1800's jets than the 1280, C84, and C86 I also have owned.  By not 
having to remove the carts, the problems went away.  However, you 
need to keep track of how many pages yu've printed and refill before 
the carts go dry.  That is the down side.  Once you've done it a 
couple of times, you get used to it and it's no big deal.  In fact, 
it's faster than refilling and reinstalling carts unless you keep 
extras on hand.  But if you remove and reinstall, you risk getting 
air in the jets...

4)  The Espon Status program is disabled as follows from the driver 
preferences window: from the Maintanence tab, click "Speed and 
Progress", then check the "Disable Epson Monitor 3" box.

My source of information is Ross Hardy at InkJetCarts.us who is very 
helpful.  They are also a good source of refillable carts and ink.  
They sell Image Specialists inks.  Ross claims (and my experience 
verifies) they are interchangable with Epson and MIS inks.  I use the 
Image Specialist R1800 matte black interchangeably with Eboni black 
with no mixing problems.  As far as the carts go, I have not found 
any source that ships 100% good refillable carts for the R1800.  
Considering they all come from the same place, I am not surprized.  
After all, consider baby food, pet food, children's toys, etc.  The 
problem is not who sells them.  I must say, MIS's carts for the R1800 
seem to be the most robust of any I've seen.

One thing I forgot to mention is that the ink level indicated by self 
resetting chips is not the actual ink level.  That is why you need to 
keep track of how many pages you've printed and refill that carts based 
on your page count and not the indicated ink level.

Bob, thanks for this write up. While working on some custom mixes I
have been dealing with the MIS reset carts for the r1900. Just a few
notes... on the Mac, there is no way to disable the status monitor.
I'm pretty sure I could uninstall it the entire Epson Utility, which
includes the monitor, but then there is no way to invoke a nozzle
check or cleaning cycle. I do get the impression the existence of the
utility and using it interacts with the carts in an unconvenient
manner, forcing more low ink conditions than necessary.
So far, I have yet to get a cart reset with by turning the 1900 off
and on as instructed. The only way I can do it is to pretend I am
replacing carts, which then invokes a cleaning cycle wasting lots of
ink... just to reset.
So, working with these things is pretty frustrating, I do more of that
than actual printing.
Any other user's experiences or insights would be welcome.

By the way, the r1900 seems like a nice desktop printer for multi
density K ink printing. I think the paper feed may start to require
regular cleaning soon, like the 1400. In the Epson driver there is a
setting for thick paper which may help, unfortunately no way to invoke
that in QTR that I can find. Older desktop models with the thickness
levers never seemed this touchy.
Thanks,
Tyler

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@...m, "Bob Marsolais"
<bob@...> wrote:

>
> Here are a couple of points that may help those of us using self-
> resetting chips.
> 
> 1) There are two types of self-resetting chips - those that reset 
> when you cycle the power (usually the oulder type) and those that 
> reset themselves when they go below a certain level.  If you have the 
> later type, disable the Espon status monitor or else you printer may 
> stop printing when the INDICATED levels get too low.  Disabling the 
> Epson monitor will allow you to print throught the low level 
> indication until the chip resets itself.
> 
> 2) You cannot mix OEM, self-resetting, or manual reset chips.  All 
> chips installed should be the same type.  The printer will usually 
> report a bad cartridge or "cannot recognize cartridge" message if 
> chips are mixed.
> 
> 3) Because self-resettng chips reset themselves, you never need to 
> remove the cartridge from the printer and risk getting air in the 
> jets.  Just refill the carts in the printer.  This is the biggest 
> reason to use this type of chip.  I had more problems with air in the 
> R1800's jets than the 1280, C84, and C86 I also have owned.  By not 
> having to remove the carts, the problems went away.  However, you 
> need to keep track of how many pages yu've printed and refill before 
> the carts go dry.  That is the down side.  Once you've done it a 
> couple of times, you get used to it and it's no big deal.  In fact, 
> it's faster than refilling and reinstalling carts unless you keep 
> extras on hand.  But if you remove and reinstall, you risk getting 
> air in the jets...
> 
> 4)  The Espon Status program is disabled as follows from the driver 
> preferences window: from the Maintanence tab, click "Speed and 
> Progress", then check the "Disable Epson Monitor 3" box.
> 
> My source of information is Ross Hardy at InkJetCarts.us who is very 
> helpful.  They are also a good source of refillable carts and ink.  
> They sell Image Specialists inks.  Ross claims (and my experience 
> verifies) they are interchangable with Epson and MIS inks.  I use the 
> Image Specialist R1800 matte black interchangeably with Eboni black 
> with no mixing problems.  As far as the carts go, I have not found 
> any source that ships 100% good refillable carts for the R1800.  
> Considering they all come from the same place, I am not surprized.  
> After all, consider baby food, pet food, children's toys, etc.  The 
> problem is not who sells them.  I must say, MIS's carts for the R1800 
> seem to be the most robust of any I've seen.
>

Hi,
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? Please be patient with me, because I don't know much about third party inks and carts. Just don't want to pay so much for Epson inks anymore. If possible point me to the sources of carts and ink.
Thank you!












    
            Here are a couple of points that may help those of us using self-

resetting chips.



1) There are two types of self-resetting chips - those that reset 

when you cycle the power (usually the oulder type) and those that 

reset themselves when they go below a certain level.  If you have the 

later type, disable the Espon status monitor or else you printer may 

stop printing when the INDICATED levels get too low.  Disabling the 

Epson monitor will allow you to print throught the low level 

indication until the chip resets itself.



2) You cannot mix OEM, self-resetting, or manual reset chips.  All 

chips installed should be the same type.  The printer will usually 

report a bad cartridge or "cannot recognize cartridge" message if 

chips are mixed.



3) Because self-resettng chips reset themselves, you never need to 

remove the cartridge from the printer and risk getting air in the 

jets.  Just refill the carts in the printer.  This is the biggest 

reason to use this type of chip.  I had more problems with air in the 

R1800's jets than the 1280, C84, and C86 I also have owned.  By not 

having to remove the carts, the problems went away.  However, you 

need to keep track of how many pages yu've printed and refill before 

the carts go dry.  That is the down side.  Once you've done it a 

couple of times, you get used to it and it's no big deal.  In fact, 

it's faster than refilling and reinstalling carts unless you keep 

extras on hand.  But if you remove and reinstall, you risk getting 

air in the jets...



4)  The Espon Status program is disabled as follows from the driver 

preferences window: from the Maintanence tab, click "Speed and 

Progress", then check the "Disable Epson Monitor 3" box.



My source of information is Ross Hardy at InkJetCarts. us who is very 

helpful.  They are also a good source of refillable carts and ink.  

They sell Image Specialists inks.  Ross claims (and my experience 

verifies) they are interchangable with Epson and MIS inks.  I use the 

Image Specialist R1800 matte black interchangeably with Eboni black 

with no mixing problems.  As far as the carts go, I have not found 

any source that ships 100% good refillable carts for the R1800.  

Considering they all come from the same place, I am not surprized.  

After all, consider baby food, pet food, children's toys, etc.  The 

problem is not who sells them.  I must say, MIS's carts for the R1800 

seem to be the most robust of any I've seen.

>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

 



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Thanks, Bob...you answered many of my questions too.

Just curious...why do you use a separate syringe for each ink? Can't 
you clean the syringe sufficiently to be able to use the same one for all inks?

Also, you mentioned inkcarts.us has the same inks from "Image 
Specialists" . Is that the ink from MIS (inksupply.com)?

Thanks in advance,

Pat K
Juneau, AK

______________________


At 09:59 AM 12/21/2008, you wrote:

>  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.

> Just curious...why do you use a separate syringe for each ink? Can't 
> you clean the syringe sufficiently to be able to use the same one
for all inks?

The less of this stuff you wash down the drain the better.  I use an
empty ink bottle to squirt extra ink into, wipe down the needle with a
paper towel, and also use syringes for each color to minimize the
cleaning I do.

Image Specialists supplies ink for MIS.