Epson 1400 no longer recognizing CIS

[tmaugham]

My 1400 has just stopped recognizing my CIS and just gives me a red out-of-ink light. Suspecting the chips, I removed the CIS and replaced it with refillable carts with the SAME chips that were on the CIS and all is well. I put new chips on the CIS and reinstalled it but still have the dreaded red light.

Is it possible that the 1400 has somehow sensed the CIS and decided not to allow it anymore? I've had the printer sine March, 2011 and the CIS since June of 2011.

Any help on this issue will be most appreciated!!!

Thanks,
Tom

 

[mikling]

Contact problem is the case. The printer is totally blind to what is physically on it. No sensors are on the printer that can do this and you verified that the chips are working.
It is likely that the CISS cartridge group needs a little adjustment.
Independent cartridges that can exert independent pressure is more likely to present less problems as each cartridge can place consistent pressure and alignment. Grouped cartridge and especially one whose chips are joined and cannot align independently tend to be more finicky because misalignement in one dimension can affect ALL the chips.

 

[jtoolman]

I seriously doubt it. Though I can't explain how it could possibly tell what's mounted beyond the chips.
I assume your CIS does not use a chip bar but single replacable chips. Weird!

 

[tmaugham]

With baited breath and much sacrificing of goats I am pleased to announce
that I appear to have solved the problem. It appears that one or more of the
CIS carts is no longer fitting correctly in its slot and that caused one or
more chips to misalign. For the time being I think that I managed to bend
the offending cart such that it now fits correctly in it slot and holds the
chip in the correct position. I will now order a new set of carts for the
CIS. What a pain, Thank you Epson!!!

My heartfelt thanks to all of you who offered advice, it is very much
appreciated!!

Best regards to all,

Tom

 

[mikling]

Epson intended the cartridges to be mounted independent of one another. The CIS is a contraption or hack in a fashion. On precisely moulded parts like what Epson provides, alignment is generally not an issue. Atermarket parts with looser tolerances than what Epson specifies for its own parts is the problem. I think the grief should be directed at another part (mfr) and not Epson. The same reason why Canon carts always fit better. Fair is fair.

 

[tmaugham]

Well not really... The CIS in my 1400 is composed of six individual carts joined only by the fact that the ink tubes are in a ribbon. The carts themselves are not joined together in any way. As such they install just like other carts except that one has to be aware of the tubes so a not to twist or kink them. I still maintain that one or more carts (just one though I think) somehow became a bit warped and thus caused the chip to not align properly. Why one misaligned chip would cause them all to not register is a bit of a mystery to me but so be it. If the printer had identified the one chip that was misaligned it would have made diagnosing the problem a lot easier. I have it working now and in the near future I will buy six new individual carts and replace the six currently in the CIS configuration.

As I mentioned before, this CIS has been in the printer for well over a year without giving me any problems so having one cart somehow go out of alignment is not too bad IMHO.

The negative criticism that I directed toward Epson in my last post was for having the %$*#@ chips in the first place and I stand by that statement!!!

Best regards to all,

Tom

 

[mikling]

The 1400 you have is a rare one. It is an early production one that can accept V3.1 software on the chips. V3.1 firmware on the aftermarket chips consists of one master (black) and 5 identical slaves. I would venture to guess that the misaligned one is black. A misaligned black will render the whole set non functional ..the master is called that for a reason. The 5 identical slave chips are not indiviidually identified within the chip but by the position in which it is installed. You can interchange chips on the other 5 colors.
This aspect of the non identification falls back on the aftermarket chip designer or programmer.
If you got one of the good ones this 1400 is a keeper because it likely can reset itself and when it does, all colors are also automatically reset at the same time totally automatically. This is a rare 1400 that many would desire today.

 

[tmaugham]

Hmmm, very interesting but I'm not sure just how old it is. My understanding is that the 1400 was first intrduced in 2004 and since I bought mine new from B&H in March, 2011 I doubt that is early production as B&H turns their stock over quite rapidly. Are you aware of any way to determine the date of manufacture or what particular version of the ssoftware is in the printer?

As far as the version of the software on the chipset, do you know of any way to determine this? And as far as the one master and five identical slaves, my chips are individually marked with the Epson color numbers, 791R through 796R, which makes me believe that the chips are in fact individual to the color and must therefore be attached to the correct color cart. As it happens, I have three sets of chips, the ones that came with my CIS and two sets that came with the two refillable sets of carts that I have. As far as I can see all the chipsets are identical and each chip is marked as I indicated. While I am not sure, I don't think that the culprit was my black cart but the cyan cart. Time will probably tell on that issue as I expect it to fail again sooner than later.

I would love for all the chips to reset at the same time as that would reduce the fact that it goes through a purge cycle every time a color gets low but sadly that is not the case. If you are aware of a set of chips that will do this I would very much like to know about them.

Thanks for your information,

Tom

UPDATE: The firmware version in my printer is AR1273. I don't know how that relates to being an new or old version, does anyone have any information on this?

Tom