Want to buy an Epson AIO and refill

[bill buttermore]

Thanks for the replies. So, how does a fellow know when to change a refilled cartridge with an aftermarket chip? Is there a way to monitor the ink level so the cart does not run dry?

 

[mikling]

The leftover ink articles are incorrect in a modern day context. If you read through old articles or if the author is regurgitating what was previously written then they are just reporting old news.

After Epson's lawsuit, in which they had a reason to leave a good reason to leave up to 20% in, they installed an ink sensor into the cartridge. You need to step back and understand the history of inkjet printers. For Epson, let's start at the sponge based color cartridge with no chip. Users would use the cartridge and really try to use them till everything was squeezed out. Well, if you run the Epson printhead dry for too long, it would clog. Yeah, it's hard to understand why no ink would cog. Even if it didn't clog it would get trapped air bubbles which could take as much as half the cartridge to remove at times. The first generation of chip produced a countdown use. and this was appl;ied to sponge based carts which had another problem. the second geenration of chip brought spongeless cartridges. However, this countdown use was inaccurate. it necessitated a reserve be put in so that the printer never sucked an ink cart dry. Then users caught onto the reserve and resetters were recommended to suck the ink dry. Problems galore. Add to this, the current state of head design was somewhat inadequate. Class action suit. Class action suit won. Epson now had to put in ink sensor to protect the printheads. This allowed perfect resolution of the ink reservoir issue. All was always used up. No if ands or buts. The OEM chips would be neutered when run below a certain level. The class action suit forced Epson to step up the electronic game. The reserve was necessary but try telling that to users.

For Canon, they had the optical system which many know works ok in telling the out of ink for the reservoir but not how much is in the cartridge. The chip was added so after the reservoir, the printer was allowed a countdown to when it thought it would be finished. There is no way to tell the amt of ink in the sponge reliably. This was a response to the class action lawsuit that Epson lost. Then they followed with the clear sided tank. 220/221 which was taken away because ink conscious users were complaining that the tank side was empty but the printer only said the ink was "low" ..or the ink level on the screen did not correlate to what was in the tank. So Canon was fielding lots of complaints. On ehas to wonder how cartridges were given to users complaining about this non correlation. Hrd to explain that there was still ink in the sponge. Thus the opaque cartridge. That would fix the complaints. What they can't see, they can't complain about.
So for those complaining now about the opaque cartridges....think see what prior complaints had wrought. Similar for Epson and the stepped up electronic game.

 

[cls]

Can't speak for EVERYONE but the new WorkForce Pro Series from Epson has awesome print speed and quality. Even the "smallest" from the WF Pro family which is only a printer not a AIO Unit
comes with the same print head and speed capabilites.

Even with OEM Inks and their price range is fancinating cheap to print standard office typical sheets, and colorfull material. But with a refillable option I can even print ALL my neccessary business flyers, borshures now in house. My last Color-Laser Kyocera FS-C5400 died right after the warranty (3 weeks gap) never used 3rd Party toner..
Only fact was I had to switch to "thicker" or better office paper, since duplex printed page with an WorkForce Pro has a slight translucive effect..

 

[ghwellsjr]

I just couldn't resist. Staples has the Epson WP-4530 on sale from $300 to $190 plus they give you an additional $50 credit for turning in a used printer (working or not). I purchased one on Saturday and was very happy with it except for one detail. In the default standard mode of printing, where the printer advances about an inch at a time, it leaves a very narrow streak of white due to the printer advancing just a little bit too much. In order to avoid this, you have to use the better quality printing where the printer advances about an eighth of an inch. Well so much for a fast printer.

Sunday, I called around to find a Staples that had ink cartridges installed in the floor model and went to see if it had the same problem. I really wanted to buy another printer if the problem was limited to just the one I bought and I would exchange it.

I took a photo to copy and the floor model looked like it was almost out of ink as the printout looked like it had lots of clogged nozzles. I was surprised that the printer would allow printing with almost empty cartridges. Well, next to the WP-4530 was a similar WP-4540 which has a second paper tray. It was even worse. It had very wide streaks of yellow ink on both side of the paper.

The salesman explained that these printers sit unused for weeks at a time. I checked the ink levels and found that all cartridges were 100% full on both printers. So we started doing head cleanings and nozzle checks in an attempt to restore proper operation. On the WP-4540 we could never get the yellow streaks to go away and several other colors had clogged nozzles. The best we could do on the WP-4530 was to get full operation with the exception of the magenta which did not print at all but at least I could see if the white streaks appeared. They were barely noticeable. So I recycled another printer and bought a second WP-4530.

When I got home, this second printer also printed better than the first one on plain paper but on matte photo paper, the white streaks were very noticeable. That led me to do an online search to find out if this streaking problem was prevalent. To my horror, many customer reviews on amazon complained about the yellow streaking problem on both sides of the paper and all kinds of other clogging problems but no mention of the narrow white streaks.

So I have decided to return both printers to Staples but I'm not sure what they'll do about my recycled printers. It really doesn't matter since I have so many others.

Some additional comments:

If you want to put plain paper in the tray on the bottom of the printer and photo paper in the rear, there is no way to simply tell the printer to use the rear paper source. It determines which source to use based on the paper size you specify. If they are the same size, it always prints from the bottom tray. So you have to trick the printer by telling it the bottom tray has legal size paper in it to get it to print from the rear.

The cartridges that come with the printer are starter cartridges despite what I was told on the phone (see post #12). In fact it tells you this right on the box. It also says that you cannot use the starter cartridges in another printer. Also, although the cartridges are somewhat translucent, you cannot tell how much ink is in them.

 

[mikling]

The lack of nozzles requires that the machine uses larger dots and advances faster to compensate to regain the speed. You should have checked the output carefully to see the differences.
The other thing I did not see you do is to align the printhead. This aspect is especially important because when using the larger dots and advancement of the paper at larger steps it is crucial that this alignment be performed. . On the Epson, the interleaving in coordination with the paper advance requires perfect alignment.

This weekend, I was using an R1800 for printing text and images as a bulk printer. It actually does that pretty fast for an Epson and is well suited to the task as a bulk printer. It's quite rugged. Cannot compare say to an MP830 however in print speed.

Interesting episode and I think you've gained some knowledge by all of this.

 

[ghwellsjr]

I did align the print head but that doesn't affect the white streaks that I'm talking about. I did notice that the print head scans in one direction and the paper moves a tiny amount then after it scans back the paper moves a large amount.

I don't know what you are talking about in your first paragraph.

In any case, it was quite shocking to see all the complaints about the yellow ink leaking all over the place that the floor model of the MP-4540 exhibited. This printer had not been used at all judging from the 100% ink levels and yet it leaked yellow ink and the MP-4530 would not print magenta at all.

Yes, I've gained some knowledge. I'll stick with my old Canons as long as I can.

 

[phkhgh]

You should find that you need to opt in to automatic updates, you will also need to avoid firmware updates

http://files.support.epson.com/html...sks/changing_auto_update_windows_bus_pcl.html

http://www.wasteink.co.uk/epson-firmware-update-compatible-problem/

Install the software on the CD only

Did you mean "you need to opt OUT of automatic updates"?

 

[ocular]

This thread seems to have turned into a AIO Epson Workforce pro WP-4530 thread.

I am testing two of these to replace my aging Canon MP360s

There seems to be the thought that the initial cartridges are smaller than the subsequent cartridges. Have finished the OEM initial cartridge and the full and empty weight gave a weight difference of 45gms. The printer maintenace ink level monitor sees these cartridges as "initial".

At AUS$40 a cartridge, I have gone for non genuine cartridges at AUS$7.50 per cartridge and guess what the weights are the same as the initial OEM black and the non genuine are seen as genuine by the printer monitor software. This suggests that there is the same volume in the starter and subsequent cartridges of just under 45mls. Not sure why the the "initial" cartridge is branded as different by epson

Waiting for the yellow streaking/leaking to occur that has been well noticed by users out there and then will have reason to dismantle one and find out what cause this and if it is fixable.

Have purchased a chip resetter for the ink waste box. And unclipped the lid from the waste ink box and pushed a cut down urine specimen plastic container into the well of the soaking sponge so that I can easily empty the waste ink tank if needed.

Rihac in their blurb say that the 676XL initial black was measured at 24mls and that rihac says epson says that initial black only prints 1000 pages not the 2400 pages that the subsequent cartridges are rated at.

I think that there is some confusion here and the reason that the initial black only prints 1000 pages is because of the priming required during the 12 minute initialisation and that perhaps 22 mls of ink is needed to prime what is essentially an internal CISS, I don't believe that there is any difference in the volume of the unopened OEM cartridges that comes with the printer and the subsequent cartridges.

So how do Rihac get 24 mls for the cartridges when they physically measured the ink. Maybe they measured the ink after the printer was primed. They need to clarify this. They should weigh the cartridge when full and when empty to try and confirm their figures.

 

[ocular]

Here's the yellow ink problem these Workforce WP-4511 WP-4515 WP-4521 WP-4525 WP-4530 WP-4531 WP-4535 WP-4540 WP-4545 AIO suffer from documented

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIVNTMt0ua8

looks like the clear membrane over one of the chambers breaks.

Epson refuse to acknowledge the issue and no parts available.

So once out of warranty these printers are landfill.

Epson need to do the right thing and recall these. Maybe someone with some energy can test their regulatory body responsible for consumers rights.

 

[santer]

You should find that you need to opt in to automatic updates, you will also need to avoid firmware updates

http://files.support.epson.com/html...sks/changing_auto_update_windows_bus_pcl.html

http://www.wasteink.co.uk/epson-firmware-update-compatible-problem/

Install the software on the CD only

Did you mean "you need to opt OUT of automatic updates"?

Apologies for the delay.

My experience is that a box pops up to ask if you want to opt in to automatic updates, so as long as you click cancel, and if possible do not show this message again, you should be fine.

Same with firmware updates, you should be informed if one is available, just click cancel.

The software on the CD is usually fine.