Will Epson empty ink sensor work with compatible cartridge?

I have Epson printer Workforce Pro wf-5620dwf. I'm using aftermarket compatible cartridges.

After nagging for ages about the cyan ink cartridge being empty or nearly empty, eventually it has decided it is completely empty. It allowed printing in black and white only for a while, before now insisting on the cartridge being replaced. (Actually my tests suggest the cartridge has about 6ml of ink left in it (out of 36ml), but it has printed plenty of pages so I'm not too concerned about that.)

Until now there has been no problem at all. I've been happy with the quality and number of pages printed with the compatible cartridges, and the Epson printer has acted as if it was a genuine Epson cartridge.

This time, however, the printer says there I have installed a non Epson cartridge (its exactly the same as the one that was in before), and so the printer cannot display the ink levels. The cartridge has a label saying that this will happen if the new cartridge has the same serial number, which it does.

I'm worried now. I sometimes print long print runs, and it is possible the printer could run out of ink mid-run, causing damage to the fixed print h+ead (and I don't believe the print head can be replaced).

Can anyone advise me please? Although the printer will not display ink levels, will the empty sensor still work, so that the printer will stop printing and tell me when the cartridge is empty? Or, will it just continue to try to print, causing damage?

That model might be locked similar to the P800 USA problem!
You get one use at compatibles and they might all have the same number per color. So you get ONE use and then it is back to OEM for you.

Joe

What Joe suggested is a real possibility if you let the printer update the firmware - first rule of refillables is to go in and set all updates to NEVER. The old firmware was tolerant of 3rd party refills and the new firmware is looking for a new serial number cyan cartridge!!
If this has happened, I don't believe there is any way to revert back to the original (previous) firmware.

It is my understanding that Epson has regionalized the cartridges for different sales regions around the world. I'm currently running a WF-7110DTW A3 printer on refill, my experience may thus not be the same as yours. The original cartridges - T27xx type for Europe - appear to have an ink empty sensor at the bottom, the refill cartridges do not. The status monitor shows a low ink condition for quite a while and then changes to 'Cartridge not recognized', which is the time for refill. Taking out the cartridge, refilling and reinserting it sets the ink level back to 100%, and the driver is telling me that I'm using non-genuine cartridges which I confirm with 'OK'. It always can happen, and did in the past, that a cartridge could run empty during a print job. I'm running various Epson printers, since quite some time, nozzles running dry don't cause a problem if you provide ink pretty soon and don't let it dry out in that condition, you may need some handling and a few cleaning cycles to get the air out of the ink channels again, but with no damage remaining. I pretty much think that Epson is looking for the time difference between the date code of the cartridges - mfg date - and the date of the actual firmware. If that time delta is getting too wide with a firmware update the firmware is blocking older cartridges. I remember Epson doing that already since the R285 printer model which was the first one for me offering a firmware update at that time, and I got a problem with a CISS previously from a R265 blocking three of the cartridge chips which were a month apart from the mfg date of the other 3 chips.

Thanks every. That's really worrying because I don't want to risk my printer head if any damaged did occur by running dry, but I certainly can't pay 10x the price for oem ink - its simply not worth it for my purposes.

My compatible cartridges originally acted as if they were oem cartridges. So they showed the actual ink level, I received ink low warnings, and eventually it told me the cartridge was empty and needed replacing. Does that mean these compatibles may contain an ink sensor? If so, now that the Epson realised they are not oem and does not display ink levels, I wonder if it will still let me know when the cartridge is actually empty?

Adrian Wood said:

and eventually it told me the cartridge was empty and needed replacing.

Click to expand...

So what happened then - you took out the refill cartridge , added ink and inserted it again - and then - what did the printer/driver tell you - that the cartridge was not a genuine Epson cartridge ? you could click ok/accept and what what ink level was shown then by the status monitor ? Or are you just talking about one way compatible cartridges without refill capability and an automatic reset chip - ARC ?
The original cartridges (setup) seem to have a little prism to detect the empty condition, similar to the Canon method, I don't see such prism at the bottom of my refill cartridges.

The light prism system is a less expensive method than the continuity detectors that preceded in prior generations...a lot less expensive.
The light prism is supposed to stop the printer from operating in an empty ink condition. It also appears to trigger a fatal attack on the chips as well. In the OEM situation, this is desired. In an ARC situation you may find non resetting chips or locked up chips. So the compromise is to fool the printer that the cart always has ink but risk running out of ink in certain situations. Hence the black tape. Of course if you kept ink in the cart at all times, which you should, this would be moot.
I once explained the interplay between chip functions versus physical detection routines. They interplay and one does not replace the other.
It's a lot more complicated than most think trying to balance functionality and reliability in its logic routines.

that's the fun part of the game with such cartridges........I did not experience any problems so far with my (Chinese) T27xx refill cartridges (in Europe) for the WF7110DTW after about 10 refill cycles. Serialization of the chips is apparently not played here to prevent the re-use of previously empty reporting cartridges. I'm not using one-way 3rd party cartridges.