Refillables or CISS with Hi Capacity Chips

[ocular]

Reluctantly have begun to explore the options for chipped cartridges, after having years of great service from unchipped MP730 and IP3000. Have begun my experimentation with the Epson all in one TX610FW also known as the Worforce 610 in other places. Am trying a Rihac CISS and CISS and refillables from promiseink. All these systems seem to demand a reset after 6 mls of black ink and then a compulsory purge - takes about 3 mins. This would seem to correspond to the normal capacity OEM cartridges of about 11-12mls ( a lot of wastage) 73N cartridge. There is a hi capacity OEM 103N cartridge available that signals low after about 20mls.

My questionis is- are there any compatible refillable or CISS systems that use the hi capacity chipset? It would mean one third of the purging. Many of the compatibles advertise themselves as hi capacity compatible but I have yet to see one that reset after 20mls rather than 6-7mls. I have had better printhead durability with less nozzle problems with the CISS than the refillables. Taking the cartridges out every 6-7 mls to reset is probably not good for longevity.

 

[jtoolman]

I don't think there is such a thing as a high capacity chip set for CISS use. That would be a God send for us.
Years ago in the days before Epson got wise to us refillers, there used to exist TRUE Auto Reset Chips. These were installed on my very first CISS. Each color would continually reset itself to 100% when it reached 10%. Never an interruption.

Epson upgraded all their firmware on all new and most older printers and those types of chips are no longer able to work in the original auto reset manner. The so called ARCs that you set being advertised today require you to cut power to the chip once it has reported itself as empty.

Yes I would love a chip set that had say, 100ml capacity. On a ciss, you could go maybe a year before a color would run out. However I think that is just a just dream right now. Even a chip with 2 or 3x capacity would be great.

 

[inkoholic]

Yes I would love a chip set that had say, 100ml capacity. On a ciss, you could go maybe a year before a color would run out. However I think that is just a just dream right now. Even a chip with 2 or 3x capacity would be great.

There could be a market for "XL chips"? Someone in China or Taiwan could probably come up with a solution provided it's profitable. I wonder how many people are using CIS systems.

 

[jtoolman]

When you see just how many versions and designs of CISSs are being sold by 3rd party ink dealers, I would say it's quite high.

 

[qwertydude]

The only other convenient CISS feature would be button reset chips. One thing I didn't like with my Artisan 50 after ordering the "auto reset" CISS cartridges was the fact that when you "ran out" of ink you had to remove the cartridge, press the ink replace button and let the printer detect an empty carriage, then press the ink replace button again and replace the cartridge. Worst part was it would only reset the low cartridge. So it would purge and often times you had to do this 6 times in short order since inks tend to run out near each other and by the 6th purge the first cartridge was already 1/4 down. The button at least resets several cartridges at once. Not all of them but for some reason a set of 4 would reset but not the other 2.

 

[jtoolman]

There are some Damper CISS units that have push or sliding button resetting that resets ALL the colors at once. You have to wait till one color goes empty, hit the ink button, press the reset button and hit the ink button again. With the slider type you have to move the sliders to the off position. Hit the ink button and the printer will report that ALL colors are empty. Now you hit the ink button once again and slide the switches back to on position and press the ink butt button one last time. and ALL colors should be reported as full.
Instead of resetting and purging after each color goes dry, you are only doing once because all color are reset regardless of the level the others were at at the time.

 

[ocular]

The CISS I have tried use a reset button so the cartridges remain insitu, but 6ml resets wastes ink and time and drives the printer towards the waste ink pad error. Mainly use black in the office setting and have to reset this at least once per week.

Anyone usuing the brother printers all in ones which have chipless cartridges and now there seems to be aftermarket cartridges which hold 100mls black and 70 ml coloured ink. These monster cartridges remain stationary. So does brother have a built in CISS system to allow the print head to move? Will get one to play with as I cant bring myself to go down the epson route. Brother have never really got a name for the low end desktop market. Apparently they are slow to print and quote their PPM in draft mode to fudge the figures.

 

[lin]

Reluctantly have begun to explore the options for chipped cartridges, after having years of great service from unchipped MP730 and IP3000. Have begun my experimentation with the Epson all in one TX610FW also known as the Worforce 610 in other places. Am trying a Rihac CISS and CISS and refillables from promiseink. All these systems seem to demand a reset after 6 mls of black ink and then a compulsory purge - takes about 3 mins. This would seem to correspond to the normal capacity OEM cartridges of about 11-12mls ( a lot of wastage) 73N cartridge. There is a hi capacity OEM 103N cartridge available that signals low after about 20mls.

My questionis is- are there any compatible refillable or CISS systems that use the hi capacity chipset? It would mean one third of the purging. Many of the compatibles advertise themselves as hi capacity compatible but I have yet to see one that reset after 20mls rather than 6-7mls. I have had better printhead durability with less nozzle problems with the CISS than the refillables. Taking the cartridges out every 6-7 mls to reset is probably not good for longevity.

Hi Ocular, there is this super arc chip from Russia, do check them out. But I am not too sure if there is one for your model. It's high capacity, can't remember the exact ml but i think's 20ml. And I read last year that someone tested his super chip (in his case his model has a battery). His test report show that it could print approximately 25 pages for a color (depend how you much margin you set up for the purge color print) on A4 plain paper setting your before it start to report ink empty and require a reset. And the super chip is able to reset as and when you like it. So that mean, one could reset even if some color just report half full. I am not too sure if there is further improvement to the super chips as it was more than 4 months since I last read.

But there is people also who go about resolder some printer model chip to the circuit board to convert their printer to epson equivalent CISS model so that they can do away with the chip and don't have to get frustrated with the resetting, half printed paper and the head cleaning cycle after reset.

I too wanted to purchase something from Russia/Ukraine like the chip holder and the ciss capsules but I am having difficulty as they don't except paypal and haven't reply whether they accept moneybookers. And I also not too sure how can the items be ship oversea (non Russia or Ukraine counterparts).

 

[mikling]

The amount of ink consumed before a reset is highly dependent on the original OEM chip count, the printer firmware and driver. Now let's say Epson makes an entry level printer that ONLY uses the low capacity cartridge which is likely in your case. Remember that Epson designed this printer to work within the razor blade model completely. That means you purchase the printer for a low cost and they expect to reap the profits at ink purchase time. So the the printer firmware will only accept the chip model with a low ink usage count. The driver by Epson will work together with this firmware. The physical exterior dimensions are identical to higher capacity cartridges BUT the interior has blocked out areas to make the interior volume smaller.

Some printer models even when purchased with low capacity cartridges allow the use of the standard capacity cartridge which is the larger capacity. The firmware in these printers will then accept both the low ink count chips as well as the higher ones. If the CISS has the higher capacity chip, then a longer period will be allowed before a reset is required. As you can figure out, these printers are higher cost than the Walmart special with the red label. etc. and not bargain basement models.

On the more expensive models, many of the printer are shipped with the standard capacity chips but the printer can accommodate the higher capacity chips as well. These cartridges fully utilize one of Epson's features in the OEM cartridge. That is the physical ink detector. By having this ink detector, Epson is able to FULLY utilize every single cc of space inside the cartridge with no risk of the printer ever running out of ink. Just like the Canon prism system, the ink levels can remain high or remain low STUCK in one spot for a long time then suddenly it is empty. When this happens, it tells you that the estimation had gone wrong BUT the ink level detector saved the day by allowing the printer to print until the ink had truly run out. With aftermarket chips there is no such detector, but the action is simulated. The result is that there is currently no aftermarket cartridge that can match the Epson extra high capacity cartridges because 1. The space required for the reset chip CUTS into the cartridge body, and 2. the air intake ciscuit also cuts into the volume as well. The exterior dimensions are identical. So for these, you must always refill before the chip is empty because there is nothing you can do except for reverting back to the lower capacity chip.

Some model like the R2000 only use the extra high capacity models so there is no alternative and there is nothing to be done about this.

Now for some more interesting semantics about refillables. Not all refillable cartridges are the same capacity. This is lost on many people and also suppliers. They can vary from around 12 ml to 16 ml with the same external dimensions... do your homework.. If you use a 16 ml cartridge with a chip that is tuned to 12 ml you won't run out when the chip says empty. If you use a 17ml chip on a 12 ml body, you will run out. The extra high capacity chips are tuned to want to see 17ml. So even if you have found the largest refillable, you will still be short 1 ml. And remember, there is limited accuracy of the printer in estimating how much ink exactly was used by each prime and clean etc. The reason is that the amount of ink consumed in each of those cycles will be determined by the relative flow reistance because it is one peristaltic pump pulling from a bunch of cartridges. The volume pulled out may not be be necessarily equal amongst all colors.

So as jtoolman has recommended, topping off is the best way to do the refill. If you want perfection, then Epson OEM chips and bodies with the ink detector will work perfectly, but bring the wallet as well.

If you are using the older printers, SSC will allow you reflash the OEM chips to a previous stored level so you never run out of ink. That way no ARC is necessary and the printer sees genuine Epson with no nag screens.

If these issues bug you the best course of action is to acquire the older printers really. At that time the mfrs were not designing printer with a clear purpose to trip up the aftermarket as they are doing today.

 

[lin]

He doesn't have to worry about refillable capacity on cartridges if he is using CISS with high-capacity chip. These high capacity chip (CISS Combo Chip aka the Super ARC Chip from Russia) are already available unfortunately at this moment it's for some model only.