Fooling Epson Printers

[SteveC]

Hi,

Anyone know how to trick an Epson 760 Photo into thinking its ink cartriges aren't really empty? On the old epsons, you just changed it and it carried on until visibly empty, but with the newer cartridges which have the little circuit board on them, it's not having any of it.

It thinks my colour's run out, when feeling the weight of it, and from its last print, I know it isn't empty yet. Plus I need to print something, and it refuses to do anything, even black and white printing....

[Paddy]

buy it a beer and ask nicely?

[cbman]

Just kick it until it starts to realize that printing would be a very good idea..

[rubank]

According to Epson there is no model 760 Photo, so you obviously have a fake printer.

Seriously, I assume it´s either a Stylus Color 760 or a 750 Photo.
In any case, Epson´s manuals for these models say the same thing regarding cartridges, and that is that opening the retaining clip renders the cartridge useless and not reinstallable even if there is ink left in it.

This is however not true, when it comes to the Stylus 760 model. I have one myself so I know. It´s perfectly alright to remove and reinstall a live cartridge. I´ve done it several times, whereby the software regards it as a new, full, tank. This way you can really squeeze the last drop out of it.
Nothing in the manual for 750 photo indicates that this model would be any different in this respect, but I couldn´t realy tell since Í don´t have one.

But are you sure it isn´t some other reason for the malfunction?
Just a thought...

rubank

[Fat Tone]

Steve

I have the Photo 890, which uses cartridges that have the little PCBs. I decided to stick with genuine cartridges on this printer as they are much more reasonable than for my old SC600.

However, when looking for cartridges at the shows, I found replacement kits that required you to take the pcb off the Epson cartridge and reprogram it to 'new' status then attach this pcb to the 'compatable' cartridge.

Maybe this programmer is what you need.

BTW the ink counting on these still sucks. It shows all five colours in the colour cartridge at the same level!

HTH

Tony.

[SteveC]

I have a photo 870 I have no idea what possessed me to think I had a photo 760!?!

Anyway, that programmer sounds useful, Tony. Have to do some investigating... Thanks guys!

[SteveC]

hmmm $55 sounds a bit of a rip off - it must be possible to make one of these?

http://www.jrinkjet.com/zapitinstruct.html

[Fat Tone]

Steve
The kit I saw was more like ~£20 including one cartidge of each type. After buying the starter kit, you only need the cartridges which were ~£7 each. It was a while ago, but it definately wasn't $55.

Tony.

[Indiana]

Originally posted by rubank

Nothing in the manual for 750 photo indicates that this model would be any different in this respect, but I couldn´t realy tell since Í don´t have one.

I have the Photo750 and you can trick it the same way you described for the Stylus760.
But since he owns a newer model with this f*cking chip on the ink cartridges (I'm 100% sure they did this for the sole reason to prevent the use of "alien" inks, whatever they might claim) I think the only way is to use such a reprogrammer.

[Kastuvas]

I have an Epson 760 and when my ink cartrige "runs out" i take it out chake it and put it back and the printer shows a full cartrgige of ink

I have an article about those chiped cartriges somewhere in one of my magaziens, i will dig it out tomorow.

By the way did you notice that if you dont even print anything the printer is still using the ink. I always print in balck but the colour cartrige has less ink everytime you swith the printer on

[Fat Tone]

K - its probably due to the head cleaning cycles on powerup - which use one heck of a lot of ink! If ever you've tried clearing blocked nozzles on an Epson you'll know what I mean.
T.

[The PIT]

Do HP follow the same practise??

[Ali]

Hey Tony, how do you clean the heads? I have an old Photo 600 at home that has VERY blocked heads. It sat idle for about 6 months, and when I went to print, nothing came out. Put new ink cartriges in, and still nothing.

It makes all the right noises and stuff, just no ink is getting onto the paper.

Im guessing some ink has dried in the heads.

Ive run the head cleaning routine 100s of times, and nothing. I was thinking about pulling it apart, and seeing whats inside, but any info before hand would be good.

Ali

[Fat Tone]

Ali: Yep - that was the bane of my life with my SC600. Even once I got all the nozzles working again the printing was just never as good as new.

You can try soaking a cotton-bud in a solvent and using this to clean the head under the cartridge caddy, or you can buy head cleaning cartridges which sit in place of the ink cartridge and run the solvent directly through the system.

If you've done that much head cleaning already, you may want to take the cover off the printer and clean inside. In the park position you'll see a 'blade' that scrapes excess ink off the head, and an absorbant pad that will probably be saturated by now. I'm afraid it won't be worth paying anyone to get it serviced.

Good luck!

Tony.

PS I did love that printer when I first got it, but my 890 is waaay better. I remember once a friend trusted me with producing a copy of an 8x10 of him with Stirling Moss - it was way too precious to him to trust to a bureau. He was blown away by the results (on the SC600, when new).

[TnT]

Originally posted by The PIT
Do HP follow the same practise??

I don't know, but I have a HP Deskjet 722 and the ink cartridges last forever. I do a good amount of printing and I also turn it on and off a lot, so that it won't suck up resources talking to the computer while I'm vid capping.