Been playing with the Pigment black cartridge with one of the most common ARC sets and confirmed the issue with the ARC Catch 22.
The scenario plays out like this.
- Fill your T26BK (pigment black) cart to it's max (around 9.7ml).
- Print using the pigment black and the printer will detect that the prism is indicating empty while the chip is not.
- So you refill the cartridge again and this time the cartridge uses up 25% again (some of it in priming) before it indicates the cartridge can't be recognised (ie: The chip is saying it's empty).
- This is when the problem hits. The printer will not declare the cartridge empty unless the prism is also indicating empty.
So, now it's time to get creative and there's a few options:
- If you have a spare empty T26BK cartridge you can swap the ARC chip across to that, insert the empty cart into the printer and allow the printer to recognise that both the chip and prism are indicating empty. This allows it to reset.
Tip: If you do this, prepare to pull the plug as soon as it's recognised because otherwise it will run a priming routine and waste a load of your other cartridges ink with an empty black cart installed.
- There's the modification option suggested by Mikling above, where you drill the void compartment and fill that. But, you would have to ensure you filled it to the correct weight/volume so you don't go over or under and miss the sweetspot for resetting.
- Theoretically, you could use scales to fill once, make a note of the amount filled, then when it triggers at the physically empty, chip not empty point, you would refill with the difference in ink to get an XL capacity volume.
eg: (BK-XL capacity = 12.2ml >> Fill #1 = 9.7ml, Fill #2 = 2.5ml) or fill to 6.1ml each time you refill.
Each approach has it's pro's and con's and overall the real problem is the amount of waste ink being generated with the extra cleaning being done so, depending on end-user confidence, I'd probably recommend:
- Mod'd cart as first choice
- The two fill to XL approach second
-...and a spare empty cart as the fallback.
I will confirm the (third) theoretical approach shortly when I've played some more but as a side note, whatever you choose, the amount of ink being wasted with each cartridge change/priming routine is quite substantial, as is the amount of ink being used for full page, one colour.
Oh and just one more, completely off the wall, approach. You could also tip the printer so it was pivoting on it's rear/bottom edge so it was almost vertical
(front of printer at top). Provided you hadn't just refilled, this would clear the prism of ink and allow the reset conditions to be met.
Not entirely sure I would recommend that as an approach as it would undoubtedly result in stressed cable connections at the rear, etc... but it should work. Suspect there's some other unintended consequence issues to consider as well (scanner lid flying open, etc..) so worth keeping your eyes/ears open and your wits about you.
To say there's been some out of the box thinking on this would be putting it mildly
)
