Fooling Epson Printers

[Ali]

Thanks Toni, Ill try the solvent over the weekend.

The head cleans never managed to get any ink past the heads, so I think the pad should be fine.

It doestn realy matter that much, it was too slow for me so I bought a Epson colour 900 which is MUCH faster. It would just be nice to have a spare

Ali

[ALBPM]

Mixing Isopropyl alcohol and Windex works great for unclogging the heads.

Paul

[The PIT]

The nice thing about HP's they are quiet my old epson makes a racket.

[EvilDonnyboy]

Mixing Isopropyl alcohol and Windex works great for unclogging the heads

That prolly works fine on HP printers, but I don't see how you'd do that on an Epson printer. HP printers have cheap nozzles on all their ink carts, so the head's are replaced every time u replace ur ink. But Epson uses permanant head's. So if u **** up the heads well... ur ****ed. To replace the print head's is stupid, as they cost almost as much as a new printer.

But I still find Epson photo prints, better than comparable HP printers. The new Epson C80 is amazing.

[Kastuvas]

Here I found some info about the Epson Ink cartiges:

Epson Curbs Ink Refills

I've just bought an Epson Stylus Color 680. After 30 printouts, the black ink cartridge ran dry To make matters worse, 1 was unable to buy replacement ink cartridges, so 1 bought a refill kit. 1 refilled the cartridge - but the printer continued to claim that the cartridge was empty.

Epson, I have discovered, has put microchips into its cartridges which measure the outward flow of ink. When the chip registers that a preset amount of ink has been used, it marks the cartridge as empty: refilling makes no difference.

Since trying to refill my cartridges, I have finally found some new ones on sale. To my surprise, it costs £24.99 for a black cartridge containing 10 to 15mI of black ink. Black gold, in my opinion.

Abbie Royce of the Epson Press Office stressed the benefits of the company's 'Intelliedge' cartridges: 'The cartridge knows exactly how much ink it contains, and whether or not there is sufficient for the print job in question." It also ensures that the cartridge 'doesn't run itself entirely dry, and so risk drawing air into the feed system with the risk of potential damage to the print head." She also claimed that Epson inks were competitively priced 'against its printer manufacturer competitors, not against third-party supplies."

Tim Wardman, Sales Manager of Cortex, which sells third-party supplies, says Epson's own 680 cartridges are 'extortionate.''

Royce says: "the Stylus Color 680 software does offer the customer the option to use a cartridge other than Epson's" Wardman says the new cartridge technology will hit compatibles, because competors can't manufacture them.

Computer Buyer March 2001

I write in response to R Jackson of Rotherham's complaints about the problems refilling Epson cartridges, now that Epson has fitted chips inside them. I've found a UK company that has developed a system to re-programme the cartridges to allow refills. I suggest he check out www.dci.co.uk who are the manufacturers.


This is all from a computer magazine.

[Dr Mordrid]

To unclog a head I just soak 'em in isopropyl alcohol about 1/2" deep in a shallow container. Capillary attraction does the rest.

Dr. Mordrid

[EvilDonnyboy]

Hmmm. I can refill my Epson 740 carts fine. But I don't anymore, because I noticed the refill Ink looks like shit compared to geniune Epson ink. I use Ko-Rec 3rd party black Ink carts, which are pretty close enough to geniune. Barely noticable, only noticable in large photo pictures with large black areas. Then you see that geniune ink is more "black", deeper. But you can't tell the diff w/ text. Colour ink however, I use geniune.

Now I'm not sure how you would dip Epson heads into alcohol... how would u remove the heads, without screwing it all up?

[Fat Tone]

possibly a useful resource...

http://www.fixyourownprinter.com/cgi-bin/public/forum.pl