Refilling Epson T0484xx

[Trigger 37]

I'm and old hand at refilling Canon ink carts but have just started to "Attempt" to refill some Epson carts. I've searched on the web and found to different ways to refill original Epson T0484xx ink carts. One involves drilling 1/16" dia holes in the side and front, refilling, and sealing with hot glue gun. The other fron "Uni-Kit" uses an eyelet screw to open the filling hole in the top and the bottom of the ink cart. Both refill very slowly with a needle and syringe. This one seals the holes with a Tape dot. This method says it applies to the T043, T044, T048, T054.

One other process comes from TrueColor web site and covers T032, T042. T043, T044. It is just a little different from the other two.

Before I dive into either of these, I thought I would ask this community for their experience on this type of ink cart.

I have purchased supposedly compatible ink carts for the T0484xx but when I install them in the R300 printer, I get an error message saying "Ink carts can not be recognized." I have installed all 6 ink carts. The printer seemed to be working fine with the OEM carts but the yellow had run out and it was under the "Caution" flag. It did successfully print a nozzle check just before it told me that the yellow was too low to continue. I wanted to do additional cleanings but the red light just keeps on blinking.

Hope someone has some good suggestions on this.

 

[mikling]

Trigger I suspect I am the inventor of the 1/16 in method you refer to. If you take apart one of the cartridges you'll see why the underneath method cannot be foolproof. Epson has designed the cartridges so that refilling will be difficult. You just have to look at the angled baffles internally and you'll see there is a reason for those and it has nothing to do with performance. Some are there to intentionally trap bubbles. The only sure way of refilling those with the least amount of equipment is the method I construed. The newer cartridges don't have this oversight by the engineers.

The Epson cartridge is somewhat like a 3 dimensional maze. It is a complicated cartridge that contains self sealing valves that open on insertion and completely seals on removal. Filtered air intake. Slope for ink intake, filter prior to the valves. Those double walls are not for strength.

To ensure you refill properly, check the finished weight before and after to see how close you get to full. With my method, you get within 0.5cc if you do it right and no air entrapment at all.

Here's another word of warning. Many users buy water based dye inks compatibles and plop them into the system to replace the Durabrite pigment inks. Guess what happens? the left over pigment ink congeals within the waterbased dye ink and starts clogging if you don't use it out immediately or flush properly by printing a lot immediately.

 

[mikling]

Here's an example of pigment ink left in water to gongeal. Guess what the gel like things will do to your head?
Also don't refill original Durabrite with Water Based Dye inks as well. When mixed with colored dye ink, it will be hard to notice the congealing or gelling so that is why my example is done with water.

 

[Trigger 37]

mikling,...Thanks very much for the info. It is great to have the detailed picture, especially before I do any drilling. By the way, how did you control the pixel size of the image you uploaded. I thought ther were limited to a much smaller size. Do you have any knowledge about why compatible carts aren't recognized by Epson Printers?

I also saw your post about Epson winning some lawsuit. I'll have to read that in much more detail. I could tell you were really upset by what you said. I'm make my comments in that thread.

 

[Smile]

Here's an example of pigment ink left in water to gongeal. Guess what the gel like things will do to your head?
Also don't refill original Durabrite with Water Based Dye inks as well. When mixed with colored dye ink, it will be hard to notice the congealing or gelling so that is why my example is done with water.
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y20/mikord/congealink.jpg

I tried the same trick with HP pigment black ink and it did not congeal to gell things etc. It dissolved fine.
http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/uk/en/sm/WF06c/A1-15671-15739-15739-15743-15747-65855303.html

Or is HP ink not real pigment then?

 

[mikling]

Hp Black text pigment ink is formulated differently from an Epson pigment ink for color printers...very differently. They are both pigment from the standpoint of having solids as the basis of color but that is where it ends. Trust me, the cost is vastly different as well even in bulk quantities, so I would not play with ideas of filling Epson pigment ink cartridges with HP black text ink. The Epson pigment inks are to be used on Photo as well as Matte media. HP Black pigment ink is meant for plain paper principally and that is just the start.

It is always advisable to test with the same inks you are about to work with. Even when switching between brands of pigment ink, you should do the test as a matter of proper procedure as some inks are not compatible. Not all but the risk is not worth the small effort expended to verify.

 

[mikling]

I'm not all upset by Epson's move as I saw something of that nature coming down the road quite a while ago. If all some thrifty people were doing to save some money was refilling, it never would have come to this as I can assure you that their actions will indeed impact their share. However, when the asian compatibles came onto the scene in a strong way it hurt them well in a big way.

Remember this, HP is the one making big profits from their ink sales. Easily over half of all of HP's profits despite them selling all kinds of advanced high tech equipment & computers come from their ink sales and at one point, I recall it was close to 80%. Imagine that. So Epson's gotta do something about potential lost revenue. You don't see HP compatibles do you? You see remanufactured which still originated from HP at some point. This is a critical difference. Also with Hp cartridges you can only reman them so many times.

People were installing cartridges like the dye / pigment issue, clog their heads then take them in for warranty. Additionally, so many of the asian compatible carts were not properly designed or filled and their sponges caused ink to reverse flow at rest and literally dry out the nozzles with clogging. While this is not to say that they don't clog with OEM ink carts, it made the situation much worse with the poor compatibles.

I imagine Canon got hit with similar issues and then installed the chips with dual purpose.

Then the lawsuit that sued them for leaving ink in the cartridge that they lost. Well they fixed that with a physical ink detector that will cause refillers trouble down the road.

Oh, the recognizing it could be something as simple as bad contacts or firmware in the printer that will reject certain firmware on the cartridge chip. I'm surprised at this on this generation BUT with the newest, Epson has really raised the bar with the firmware games.

Oh, you can't mix OEM and certain compatibles so be aware of that as well. This forces you to switch all out an once if you want compatibles in which case it is cheaper to buy ONE orignal than 4 or 6 compatibles......Cute.

 

[tissouth]

Here is your problem, if you have Epson T 048xx cartridges you have a 7 pin chip on it needs to be reset. tool can be bought for about $10 any where you can by ink.
Your other numbers ar screwey, but if you have a new epson cartridge T 069xx, T078xx, T077xx, you have a 9 pin chip, and reset tool is available through ebay, problem, It dosen t always work. so be aware.

On the older epson cartridges if you want an easy method of refill, cantaca R Jet tech, and they have a new refill kit I have been using for about three months now, and the plug the fill source and is reusable.

Good luck

 

[blue4ever]

I believe that R Jet Tek kit can also be used on the more recent Epson cartridges too.

 

[Marine]

For people that are still looking for refill instructions for the Epson T044x, T048x, T054x, T059x, T060x cartridges I have developed a method. The link below is to the PDF of my instructions.

http://www.inksupply.com/html/pdf/epson_oem_refill_kit_instructions.pdf

This method works very well and does not require you to drill any holes in these cartridges.