Refill Epsons--No more compatibles

[Tin Ho]

Tin Ho, I initially did not have any problems, only after successive multiple refills. So yes, my refills print like OEM as well continuously. Please read the complete experience.

Canon printers will pause and prime the print head once in a while if you command it to print continuously. The printer keeps track of printer activity and it knows when the print head needs to take a break when it becomes necessary to prime the print head by doing a cleaning cycle. So continuous printing should never be a problem if you are using OEM cartridges or if you refill OEM cartridges. 4 or 5 successive multiple refill of OEM cartridges should not be an issue either. This is why 3rd party ink/cartridge vendors continue to survive and this is why we believe in refilling and this is why this forum exists. Or we would have made a simple conclusion long time ago - don't use 3rd party supplies. And then this forum would have ended at the time we made that conclusion.

 

[mikling]

I can see and agree with generally what you are saying but until you print exactly what I did like 60-80 8 1/2x11 continuously with exactly the same images, resolution and paper settings you cannot make a definitive conclusion. It's impossible and you'd have to repeat the process at least 25 times to do so with near absolute certainty. That is why I qualify my observations as speculation and beliefs on my part but I don't state what "should" be because that is too easy and has no substantiation unless proof of a valid test with error tolerances are stated.

In any case this thread is about refilling Epson cartridges to which I have contributed to the forum.

 

[ghwellsjr]

A valid test would also have to be done on a fairly large collection of printers (or at least print heads) and inks. This is why I'm always concerned about drawing (jumping to) a conclusion based on just my experience with one printer.

I had a problem with a particular third party cartridge with a particular print head where it would band. If I switched to an OEM cartridge, the problem went away. Or if I put the third party cartridge in a different print head but in the same printer, the problem went away. This shows that a marginal cartridge can cause a problem in one situation but not another.

Imagine if you're the OEM and you have to design for millions of customers who might even be abusing their systems. A friend of mine who I refill for actually had one of his cartridges not snapped down all the way! Think of what Canon has to go through with people like that. This is one of the reasons, I believe, they went to the chipped cartridges. The printers without the chipped cartridges cannot tell if a cartridge is not snapped down; they cannot even tell if a cartridge is missing! When you're designing a system to be fool-proof, it's because there are actually fools out there that are going to be operating your product and blaming you when something goes wrong that is really their fault. A lot of people have no problem using third-party cartridges, but when you're refilling for a lot of other people like I am, or giving advice to lots of other people, I just don't see why you'd mess with third party cartridges.

 

[mikling]

There are good third party and there are bad ones. The irony is that the consumer who would be able to discern the difference is likely the very same consumer who would end up refilling because of their knowledge!!!!!!!

 

[ghwellsjr]

How can you tell which are good third party carts and which are bad?

Is there a third party cartridge that has two sponges?

Is there a third party cartridge with a sponge that instantly turns white when the cartridge is flushed?

Those two characteristics are very important in my opinion for refillers, especially for those who refill for other people, like I do. I have only had experience with one third party cartridge, G&G, and I had bad experiences before I refilled them.

 

[Tin Ho]

but until you print exactly what I did like 60-80 8 1/2x11 continuously with exactly the same images, resolution and paper settings you cannot make a definitive conclusion.

Are you saying you print the entire album of 80 vacation photos in one shot? Most people would probably print one by one. They don't get to the next one until they are satisfied with the current then go to the next. Don't you have to make some tweaking to get a final print?

Well, even if you somehow print your entire album in one batch. The printer does not print all of them in one shot any way. If you watch your printer you will see it stops every now and then to run a cleaning cycle before continuing. The cleaning cycle is for priming the print head. This effectively breaks your one long shot into many small batches. The argument of 60-80... continuously is not a valid point. If your refilled OEM cartridges can't take that kind of small batches you have to question what's wrong with the ink.

It's impossible and you'd have to repeat the process at least 25 times to do so with near absolute certainty.

You first said 4 - 5 refills. Then you said continuous printing. Now it's repeating all that 25 times. Let's pretend that there was no problem whatsoever. Yes let's end this thread sooner. I think I made the point. It's up to you to decide if you want to use the ink still or switch to a better one.

 

[mikling]

Yes ONE batch....Repeat ONE batch. if you have your color profiling setup correctly, you edit first by your screen and batch process in one shot. If you have to tweak each one, It suggests your color management needs review on your system and you need to review your setup. When you take over 1000 shots, and over 50% are in RAW format, you have to have some idea what you are doing.

 

[Tin Ho]

Now you are saying printing 1000 photos in one batch. Remember this was what you said:

but until you print exactly what I did like 60-80 8 1/2x11 continuously...

OK, let's assume that you did print 1000 photos in one batch. Didn't you need to refill some tanks in the middle at least once? Did you repeat that 25 times and see the banding begin to appear? That's 25000 photos. I guess you have pushed a little too far. What I am getting is you refilled your OEM carts 4 - 5 times and you got banding. One suggestion for you, you might want to look at the OEM carts you refilled. There might be something wrong with them. I might have been wrong to suspect that the ink was problematic. It is extremely unlikely that you could print 24x1000 photos without any problems then got banding on the 25th 1000 photos.

 

[ghwellsjr]

I don't think he said he printed 1000 photos in one batch. I think he said he took 1000 shots with his camera and then I think he organized some of them into an 80 page album and after 60 pages, the banding started.

In any case, I sure wish I could get my hands on some of these problematic OEM cartridges to see if vacuum refilling would clear up their problems.

 

[Grandad35]

ghwellsjr,

I started refilling BCI-6 carts about 2.5 years ago. After only a few refills on each cart I also began to see occasional banding caused by poor feeding from the PM cart. Because I thought that the air in the sponge was restricting the ink flow I experimented with vacuum refilling (http://www.nifty-stuff.com/docs/inkrefill.php).

While there may have been some improvement due to vacuum refilling, it did not eliminate my banding problem. That's when I experimented with such things as alcohol drops on the filter, heating the carts to dissolve the ink residue, etc., finally coming up with a way to purge the carts with hot water. I switched bulk ink suppliers at the same time as I purged the carts and went back to conventional refilling through a hole in the ink chamber because it is easier than vacuum refilling.

To make a long story short, the purged carts and new ink completely eliminated any and all banding problems. Was it the ink or was it purging the carts that cured the problem? My guess is that the filters/sponges in the carts were clogged and that the new ink caused less clogging than the original ink (I now purge after 6-7 refills).

While this doesn't prove whether vacuum refilling is better or worse than conventional refilling, it does suggest that vacuum refilling won't cure a clogged filter or sponge.