Nigel Andrews said:
I was disturbed to find that the carts which my Epson R300 claimed were
empty (it wouldn't do anything until I swapped) still seemed to have
substantial ink left in them (I shook them and heard liquid slopping
around).
I have the SCC utility but that doesn't seem to be able to force the
printer to reset the levels.
Does anyone experience this?
Nigel
The software on your computer and the chip attached to the cartridge keep
count of how much you've printed and give an estimate of how much ink has
been used. When the chip says empty there may be somewhere between 10 - 25 %
of ink still remaining in the cartridge. The estimate is purposely
conservative by Epson to disallow printing before the cartridge is actually
empty because if you ran out of ink this could cause an annoying head clog
or introduce air into the printhead which could easily create an airlock or
at the minimum again cause premature drying of any ink in the printhead and
again cause a head clog.
To answer your question then; everyone using an Epson with chipped
cartridges experiences this event to a more or lesser degree, but there is
always left over ink, with possibly a rare exception.
A couple of years ago a class action suit was brought against Epson for
exactly what you're referring and a settlement was arranged for every person
who had bought an Epson between 1999 - Apr. '96. The action claimed that
Epson purposely configured its software and hardware to disallow printing
even though there might be as much as 25% of the ink left in the cartridge.
It claimed that consumers were being cheated of not being able to use the
entire amount of ink they'd purchased.
Rather than go to court Epson arranged to pay anyone who had bought one
of their printers within that time frame a sum of $45 ($25 cash and $20
credit towards merchandise at their online store, or $45 credit towards
merchandise at their online store).
Since then Epson's lawyers have rewritten their acceptance of use policy
when purchasing their printers. Whether or not that infers one can't sue
them again for not being able to use the full amount of ink in the cartridge
is an event to be seen.
You could purchase a chip resetter and that would allow you use of the
remaining ink in the cartridge, but that's iffy because you really can't see
how much ink is left.
For a good long term solution you can still purchase see - through
spongeless cartridges at MIS, bulk ink, and a chip resetter for your R300.
The cartridges are as easy to refill as filling a baby bottle. The ink is
excellent (from my own experience using it on a dozen printers at my school
for almost two years at this point) and you will not waste a cent or drop of
ink because the you can keep resetting the cartridge chips and use all the
ink. Additionally you will save a small fortune to what it would cost buying
Epson ink and not be contributing empty plastic into landfills.
http://www.inksupply.com/spongless_carts.cfm
You will no doubt read the noise of MK; the NG printer troll, who is highly
unaccepting of anyone elses opinions regarding refilling. I killfiled him
awhile ago. You can figure his ramblings for yourself.
Jan Alter
(e-mail address removed)
(e-mail address removed)12.pa.us