Soon: big test of refillable Epson Pro 3800 cartridges + resetters

[irvweiner]

Supplementing the discussion on dpreview concerning the priming of the 'littlefoot' 3880 carts I posted the following'

I have re-reviewed the discussion concerning purging and tested the following successfully: For the Epson 38xx 'littlefoot' carts:

1) Remove only the refill plug, hold the cart vertically with the refill hole on top and fill the cart ~80 ml of ink.

2) Replace the refill plug

3) Place the cart on its flat side, lift off the purge hole plug and insert a 10 ml leur lock syringe.

4) Rotate the cart to its normal stand-up position. The syringe will now be facing sideways.

5) Gently pull the syringe plunder out--air will be drawn out followed by some ink. Now stop!

6) Place the cart on its flat side once again, the syringe will be pointing vertically.

7) Remove the syringe and re-insert the purge plug. Have a tissue handy to wipe up any ink droplets.
8) Priming of the cart is complete!

Note that this priming process can be repeated when refilling an almost empty cart in which excessive air may have accumulated in the exit port ink channel.

I welcome comments from those who try or have tried this purge technique.

irv weiner

 

[pharmacist]

Just an update about priming the Big Foot cartridges. Sofar the cartridges seem to work very well indeed. I was bit reluctant because of the rubber ink valve, but it has been functioning very well indeed and ink flow is excellent. The only slight problem is the 1404 error code which each time jumps on your display when it is powered on, when ink level is beneath 100 ml's. Nothing to be scared off, but you have to power off and power on again to get rid of this error. The reason is because the cartridges are so huge, which is good if you want alot of ink in your cartridges, the pressure pump cannot cope with the large amount of air in the cartridges the first time powering on, so you have to power it off and on to remove this error. The more ink there is in the cartridges, the less this "problem" will occur.

Now about the priming of these cartridges: since you cannot push the ink valve to have the static amount of air removed from the cartridges, because can damage the rubber sealing of the ink valve. Instead you can do this by shaking the cartridge to get rid of the air in the serpentine tubing near the ink outlet valve:

This way the initial need of flushing the ink lines to get rid of any static air (bubble) in the ink tubing system will be reduced dramatically. Unfortunately I did not received these priming instructions, which would certainly had prevented the execessive amount of 17 cleaning cycles I had to perform over a period of 36 hours to get rid off the air pouches/bubbles in the tubing system/print head.

Ink quality of the IMA24-36 V3 inkset is excellent, same glossiness as the Inkrepublic.com IRK4-nano inkset, same nice print quality when properly profiled, but with a larger gamut in the reds/magenta's. As previously stated in my review concerning the different refill ink the IMA24-36 V3 indeed yielded a larger gamut compared to the original Epson K3.

I hope Irvweiner will report back about his experiences with the small foot system. At this moment both the Inkrepublic.com Pro 3800/3880 I-refill system and the Inkjetfly Big Foot Pro 3800/3880 are valid and good refill systems for this fantastic printer. The only thing I would like to see is that huge handle sticking out as a column to be reduced drastically to make it more compact. This will likely reduced the amount of static air in these cartridges (error 1404) and make it more elegant. I was pleased with the always staying full chipset of the Big Foot system and you only need 2 original OEM chips (PK and MK) to drive the system and the autoreset chip replacement of the waste ink tank, which is unique indeed.

 

[plague]

Hi there, I am in awe of the contributions here, Pharmacist really pushes the boat out. Thank you to all who went before me.
I just got a 3800 and have been trying to sift through the various pros and cons of IR and IJF's carts (having run a 1400/IJF bigfoot for 4 yrs with not one prob). Boiling it all down, would I be right in thinking IR's main pro is the cart robustness, but IJF's the gamut of its inks? (aside from all the other tech details) And am I right in assuming that one could put IJF V3 ink in the IR iRefill carts? And one more question, is it OK or not to run your remaining OEM carts down alongside the new refillables?
Is Irvweiner still evaluating the IJF smallfoot system?
huge thanks and greetings

 

[BudgetBoy]

Hi Everyone - newbie here. I have an Epson 3880 with OEM inks and I am ready to step up to the refillable carts or CIS system. I've been reading a lot of information here and elsewhere over the past few weeks and I've come to a road block (or is it "mind block"?). Anyway, I really like what I've heard about the OCP Company K3 inks from Germany, but don't know if they are available here in the U.S.?

I know that the Pharmacist lives and breathes this stuff and I would greatly appreciate his (and others) opinions and recommendations for a system I can purchase now. I am a part-time photographer who really wants to start printing some of the many images I have!

Thanks in advance everyone!

Nigel

 

[jtoolman]

BudgetBoy, I do not have the 3880 but have two 3800s. Go to www.rjettek.com and EMAIL them asking for the following:

IJ BKP 200
IJ BKP 201
IJ BKP 202
IJ BKP 203
IJ CP 200
IJ CPL 201
IJ YP 200
IJ MP 200
IJ MPL 201

Now be aware that these are just the regular K3 inks and NOT the ones for the 3880 which uses Vivid Magentas! They do not carry 3880 inks yet.

If you hurry and talk with Linda Hurt at extension 103 ( I don't their number with me right now ) they may be able to add your inks to their latest order from Germany.
Let me explain. They are the major supplier to most if not all ink refill places in the USA. They sell inks by the gallons so is you want specific ink sets in small volumes you have to wait till they place their huge orders from OCP in germany at which time they will add to it as a special order item. It will come by ship as part of a full container load which is slow.
I just ordered 8 oz K3 set for $74 delivered!!!
I will take about 6-10 weeks to arrive but the ink costs will be an incredible 3 cents per ML.

 

[BudgetBoy]

Today, I contacted Linda at rjettek as suggested and placed my order for a set of OCP K3 inks. As expected, there is a long lead time on getting this order in. Meanwhile, I also placed an order with inkjetcarts for their "Epson Pro 3880 Refillable Cart System +240ml inks" (3880 SK9-240). Looks like I'll have this in hand by the middle of next week, which should hold me over until the OCP inks come in.

I'm excited about the prospect of being able to "afford" to print to my hearts content now that I won't have to ponder whether to print something or not because the OEM ink is so expensive! Of course, I realized how much the ink cost when I bought the printer, but the "budget boy" inside of me still wanted to keep the purse strings pulled tight!

I'll post again once I have some prints laid out in front of me. Since I do not create my own ICC profiles, I will be relying on the paper manufacturer's profiles and maybe Epson's too for comparison.

 

[BudgetBoy]

Today, I installed my InkJetCarts refillable system for my Epson 3880. I received the package earlier this week, but I needed to wait until my OEM inks ran low, which they did today -- thank you, "PK".

My first impression of the refillable system was a bit mixed. While the carts and syringes looked good, much of the packaging was covered in dirt -- you know, the kind you might expect to see blown into your garage in late fall -- small irregular pieces. This was on the inside packaging, not the shipping box itself. That aside, I continued to unpack everything and lay it out on my workbench.

I transferred the chips from seven of the OEM cartridges as instructed and taped off the fourth, corner pin. Next, came filling the carts with the prescribed ink. I viewed Ross Hardie's videos about how to do this and that. However, I was a bit confused by which video pertained to my situation - the gravity or vacuum loading method? As it turns out, neither of these videos were spot on. Nonetheless, they provided enough background for me to forge ahead. One video stated that, in order to prime the carts, you needed to tilt the cart at a 45-degree angle and insert a blunt tip into the nozzle to bleed a little ink off and any trapped air along with it. This seemingly small procedure took longer to accomplish than everything else combined. Try as I may, I could only get ink out of one of the nine carts. I tried with and without the fill plug in. I tried different blunt tools being careful not to puncture or damage the nozzle. Finally, I took a small piece of rubber hose about 4 inches long and inserted it over the vacuum port just above the nozzle. With the fill plug in, I gave it a small puff of air by mouth. Then I inserted a paper clip into the nozzle port and Voil! Ink spurted out!!! I continued with the rest of the carts and proceeded to install them into the printer.

All references to removing the ink bay cover spoke of removing a single screw. Come to find out, there were no screws to be found. Instead, one need only squeeze in the indent brackets on either side of the cover and the lid came off.

Next, I powered up the printer and as planned, the close ink bay door message appeared. No problem simply inserted the switch plug and moved on. Of the nine cartridges, numbers 6 and 8 flashed up and needing to be replaced. I pulled them out and re-inserted them, but that didnt help. Removed them again and repositioned the black tape over the chip pin and that seemed to remedy that problem (even though I had taken great care to cover just the one pin!).

Okay, now onto the printing I opened Adobe Lightroom and made a print of the same image I made earlier today using the OEM ink. It was a contact sheet comprised of a couple dozen images of my house under construction. When compared side-by-side, my first impression was good. However, the IJC ink was a smidge darker overall. This was especially noticeable in the mid-tones (blue jeans, trees, for example).

My second print was of the PDI Test Image an 8.5MB JPEG. Again, using Lr and no adjustments, the image looked very good on InkPress Luster paper (8.5x11). In a day or two, I will be printing a complete comparison set using this same test image. Yesterday, I printed the same test image to each of the sample papers included in Red Rivers Dye Ink Sample Kit. Since the kit included both glossy/luster and matte papers, both black inks were used (PK and MK). Each image was printed using OEM ink to one half of the 8.5x11 sheet with the expectation and plan to print the same image again to the second half using the InkJetCarts ink. I will use the same settings as before in Lr, including the ICC profiles (Epsons).

Overall, I am well pleased with how the ink refill system went. After reading other posts, I am very thankful that I primed the carts and thus foregoing the headaches other users have experienced with air in the lines!

 

[fortisi876]

Hello all!

So I finally decided to pull the trigger and order a kit for my 3800 that handles resetting the maintenance cartridge as well. I had a tough time choosing but ultimately went with the inkrepublic. I received the kit last Monday and I'm having issues getting it to work, I think it might be related to their 'tuning chips' but not positive. So I telephoned & emailed them for some support either that night or the following day, I have yet to hear back from them.....anyone else experience poor customer service from them?

I think I regret choosing the IR product over the pistol looking kit already.

 

[pharmacist]

Hi Fortis876,

what is your problem exactly ? Could you please explain the exact error message, because maybe I can help you.

 

[fortisi876]

I keep getting maintenance cartridge errors and also seeing 2-3 ink carts blinking on the lcd???

FWIW- I've tried following their resetting carts instructions w/out much luck.


Thanks!