refilling epson r2880 carts

[chasl]

Can epson r2880 oem carts be refilled? or do I need aftermarket? if they can be refilled, where can I find a kit?

 

[jtoolman]

Not a good candidate for refilling. Though it can be done. They feature a special Wet Ink Sensor directly behind the chip which is connected internally to the actual ink chamber. The sensor's internal contacts literally touch the liquid ink and all is fine till it is empty. Once the level drops to a very low level the contacts will not longer be touching liquid ink and the sensor "Shorts out". You may be able to reset the chip and the resetter with report that it was a sucessful in resetting but NOPE!!!! It will reject it!

So yes you sort of can refill. But not if the chip is allowed to drop to less than 15% or so. I am totally guessing here.
I have refilled a T087 ( R1900 ) cart which also has a wet sensor and reset the chip to full. It was dwon to about 30%.
I used one way valves from Rjettek to facilitate refiling then and in the future. The valve is installed on the tip of the cart.

http://www.rjettek.com/Inkjet-Supplies/Epson-Replacement-Valve-Plugs-20pk.html

If you want to see the proper way to refill most earlier epson carts, watch my video below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fB8QspjBbhk

I recommend you instead find some high quality refillable carts for your R2880. It will save you a lot of headaches!

I also own an R2880 and I am running it on refilables and OEM inks I've harvested from very large format carts, holding from 220ml to 700ml each.
When purchased in those volumes, the price per refill is brought down to slightly higher than very best 3rd party inks. Gives me the convenience of refilling and the known quality of OEM inks.

 

[mikling]

At approximately $4 per refill cart, why bother with the work of refilling the original. The first time you run below the 15%, you're out the equivalent of 4 refillable carts when you purchase a new cart for the chip. Here is what you are dealing with in the original carts inside. You can tell Epson didn't want you to refill these.

This "style" of cart is shared amongst Epson printers. If you can imagine, 4 quadrant sections in the cart design, then you'd see that Epson uses the same external dimensions but has 4 different internal capacities internally depending on the numeric model. Depending on the model, certain sections are "blocked/closed" off and just contain air and is inaccessible. On the R1900, half of the cartridge is closed off. On the R2880, one quadrant is closed off or approximatelly three quarters of the internal capacity is used. On the R2000, the complete cartridge is used. Sadly, on some inexpensive starter printers like many found in discount stores, as little as one quarter of the capacity is used. They all look and are the same size externally.

What is not shown is that the cartridges are very well engineered far above what you'd normally think. There are even air filters built onto the other side behind the labels. The tunnel system exists in three dimensions in that some areas they run front and side to side. Most if not all areas are now double walled. Their prior design had two weaknesses that could be exploited. This current design addresses the weaknesses. So you do get something for your money!

 

[santer]

Which location are you in, am in the UK using compatible which vary between 18 and 21ml of ink per cartridge and the printer recognises them as " genuine "

Does your R2880 halt mid print when it needs a new cartridge, then complete the print?