Peculiar issue with cartridge recognition - Epson R380

[thrif-t]

Hi everyone, haven't been active here in years, but I would like to ask for assistance here before I give up on an Epson Stylus R380 printer I bought used.

I was looking in the forum history for similar problems and solutions, found similar problems but no solutions.
One of the posts said that if you can't get cartridges to be recognized (reading the chips) then the logic board may be bad.
Other posts (here & elsewhere) have spoken of firmware updates sent out to the printer to make it reject 3rd party cartridges
and only work with genuine Epson cartridges.

I found this printer used locally and had a friend that has been using R380's to print on CD's and DVD for years,
I was trying to get him a good deal on another one as they do wear out eventually, so bought it as-is, non-returnable.
Here is what it does, and I think it is quite peculiar! It came with 3 Epson ink carts and 3 3rd party ones.
It gives an error message that it cannot recognize the Epson cartridges! As a matter of fact, there were 3
extra used Epson cartridges in the box of those same colors, so I think the previous owner had this come up,
found out that changing the cartridges didn't help, and gave the printer away to the resale store I found it at.
You would think that it would flag the 3rd party cartridges as not recognized when you have a mixture like that.
Now if I were to take out just one of the 3rd party cartridges, it would recognize the Epson cartridges AND the 3rd party ones,
only the missing one would give an error.

The guy who would get the printer wanted to buy a continuous inking system for it and ordered one.
I tried to install it, and it gave me the 'cartridge not recognized' error on all 6 of them. I went thru troubleshooting steps
from the CIS company and it did not clear the error. At the very end of doing this, I decided to unlatch just one cartridge
of the set a little bit and see what happened, then I got the message that only that one cartridge was not recognized,
when I pushed it back into place, it went back to the error on all 6 cartridges again!
Final notes - I did not go out and buy Epson cartridges to replace the 3rd party ones, was afraid it would be a waste
of money as it would not recognize them either. I've never seen the printer work, but it looks like new physically.

So I guess it sounds like a logic board error more than a firmware issue, so is there a source anywhere for
a replacement logic board? How hard would it be to change out, or should I just give up on it and advise my
friend to move to the current model Epson all-in-one's that print to CD's, or a different brand?

Thanks for any ideas on this in advance.

Ron Holder

 

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I was looking in the forum history for similar problems and solutions, found similar problems but no solutions.
One of the posts said that if you can't get cartridges to be recognized (reading the chips) then the logic board may be bad.

Possible but there's also issues of:
- ribbon cable detachment
- incompatible chip mix (as discussed further on)
- soiled/bent/damaged/broken contact wires in the printhead area (the wires that make contact with the chips)

Other posts (here & elsewhere) have spoken of firmware updates sent out to the printer to make it reject 3rd party cartridges
and only work with genuine Epson cartridges.

That is not an issue with the R380 and it's now out of date somewhat.

Here is what it does, and I think it is quite peculiar! It came with 3 Epson ink carts and 3 3rd party ones.
It gives an error message that it cannot recognize the Epson cartridges! As a matter of fact, there were 3
extra used Epson cartridges in the box of those same colors, so I think the previous owner had this come up,
found out that changing the cartridges didn't help, and gave the printer away to the resale store I found it at.

It's more likely that they tried using compatibles rather than buying a set of new ones and the chips aren't talking the same lingo so the printer is not happy.

You would think that it would flag the 3rd party cartridges as not recognized when you have a mixture like that.

Ah, you would if you assumed it all was meant to make sense.. Often, with chip incompatibilities you tend to get false flag errors indicating the wrong cartridges are the problem. That may or may not be the case here but either way you shouldn't necessarily assume that it will make sense..

The guy who would get the printer wanted to buy a continuous inking system for it and ordered one.
I tried to install it, and it gave me the 'cartridge not recognized' error on all 6 of them. I went thru troubleshooting steps
from the CIS company and it did not clear the error. At the very end of doing this, I decided to unlatch just one cartridge
of the set a little bit and see what happened, then I got the message that only that one cartridge was not recognized,
when I pushed it back into place, it went back to the error on all 6 cartridges again!

Hmm... that's a bit odd.

Final notes - I did not go out and buy Epson cartridges to replace the 3rd party ones, was afraid it would be a waste
of money as it would not recognize them either. I've never seen the printer work, but it looks like new physically.

Makes sense.. That said I'd be interested to know what happens if you install the 3 empty originals.

So I guess it sounds like a logic board error more than a firmware issue, so is there a source anywhere for
a replacement logic board? How hard would it be to change out, or should I just give up on it and advise my
friend to move to the current model Epson all-in-one's that print to CD's, or a different brand?

To be honest I'm intrigued by this issue... It does seem like the printer is not happy with the compatibles and from historical memory there was some indication that after a waste counter reset the printer would demand a complete set of OEM cartridges because of the way it reverted to "new" and such printers when new required OEM's for priming/starting to stop the split and resale operations that were all buying printers then splitting up and selling inks, cd-trays, etc... as single items for more than the printer was worth as a single unit.

It's also possible the chips in the CIS are simply incompatible with your printer model so you may be discounting solutions on the basis of inaccurate data/results.


Digging around on the net it seems you're not alone though...

Were I you I'd double check compatibility on the CIS, try the originals that are empty and check the internal bay where the cartridge sit for dust, soiling, hairs, etc... and for any contact wire damage, etc... If that doesn't bear fruit I'd be thinking Spares & Repair on eBay and cut your losses.

Hope some of that rather tired (long day babysitting grumpy son) brain dump is of some use.

Martin

 

[thrif-t]

Thanks for your thoughts, Martin, just one comment - I never saw a message saying a cartridge was empty, it was always reported as not recognized,
the same as if it were not in place. More than likely I will put it up on eBay as "for parts" and get what I can out of it. I only paid $25 for it and from
what I have seen I may actually recoup what I paid, it seems to still be very popular and even a refurb sells for a lot there.

Ron