Why I have given up on anything but OEM cartridges.

[klubber]

For 2 years I have tried to beat the cost of cartridges from epson, and now I realize what you pay for. I tried 2 different CIS from jlwsales that worked well for a while then stopped. I then was convinced that refills were the way to go. I ordered some cartridges from an ebay seller and used the ink left over from my JLW cis and refilled with them. I plugged in all the cartridges and several were not recognized. I emailed the seller who told me to try switching chips around. I put five OEM cartridges in and tried all other cartridges in the black and none worked. I emailed him back and he said that he would send me a new black cartridge chip. I asked about the others and he said I would get a full set. No chips received yet. So I heard all sorts of great things about MIS. I went online and ordered a MIS kit {MP-R200-SLC-SET). I received my kit in 3 days and put it in the printer. Yellow cartridge not recognized. I took the cartridge out of my other set and switched the chips. This worked. The problem now is that I received a Black UNIV cartridge. No ebony, no Photo. I call customer support and tell the nice lady. She puts me on hold and comes back and says there must be a mistake on the web site. They would make good for me though and mail me the 2 cartridges I should of gotten; would I mail the wrong one back? (Now in my mind I am thinking of at least three more days without a working set after 4 suppliers.) I was short with the lady and told her to forget it, I just will give up. $76 for a set of refillable cartridges is steep if you are not getting anything special. No Photo ink. Website wrong? The aggravation and minimal price savings of all of these companies makes the OEM look like a bargain. I know there are a lot of people out there with success stories, but there are too many negatives for me to make this venture worth it.

 

[fotofreek]

klubber - Thanks for the post. We need to see both positive and negative reports from people who have had hands-on experience.

Thank Epson for the chipped cartridge roadblock to refilling! Sorry you had such problems. I would say, however that it is too bad you weren't able to let the woman at MIS try to solve the problems. I've had good experience with the company, although my experience with refilling an older dye based Epson printer (unchipped carts) wasn't great either. I've seen posts from Epson users who have refilled and reset chips successfully. MIS inks and virgin carts for my Canon i960, however, are fine. No clogs and no glitches I can't figure out and fix asap. As you will read on this and several other forums - Canon printers have been the easiest and most successful ones to use with good quality bulk inks. Unfortunately, Canon has now gone the way of the chipped cart. Hopefully the aftermarket vendors will come up with replacement carts and we already know that these carts are easily refilled and successfully used.

 

[johnf440]

Keep in mind that the new Canon chipped carts can be refilled, you just lose the use of the status monitor. No big loss to me..You can still print.

 

[klubber]

I agree I was wrong to treat the lady that way. I was just overly frustrated at the was my journey has gone. I posted the same post on the MIS web forum and showed how if you are not familiar with their product you can go to their site, order a pigment based ink with no knowledge of what it was, order extra cartridges you don't really want ( and pay for it) and then to be told to make up for it they will send you the extra cartridges. What you end up with is a bunch of pigment cartridges that you will not refill, and one of them did not work to start with. $76 for somthing they cahrge $66 and it wasn't what you wanted to start because of their lack of description. This couple with the results of my ventures with CIS and cartridges bought on EBAY arewhat made me frustrated. Maybe Canon is the way to go.


Thanks for letting me vent. I printed with the MIS pro ink and it is okay. I will put them aside and use them when a profile comes available.

 

[tyamada]

Klubber:

You might want to download the utility for Epson printers at this site: http://www.ssclg.com/epsone.shtml
It's supposed to work on most Epson printers, old and new.

 

[klubber]

tyamada,

I have that running all ready. I am just frustrated because I am so deep into trying to make this work that It could no longer be cost effective. I have read of the good luck people have here and have not experienced any. Every order is messed up. When i went to MIS looking for what I wanted, I followed links on their website and not only did I not get the ink I wanted, one cartridge did not work. I mostly print to DVD/CD's and photos so I was trying to use the EPSON. I will now try to scrap the whole idea and start with Canon. I have just bought a B tray and am now researching the Pixma printers for what to buy. I will then research the Refill kits and best inks. I am going to know exactly the names and item numbers down the line before I order. Any suggestions are appreciated.

 

[fotofreek]

US pixmas have to be slightly altered for printing CDs and you need to buy the cd tray. The newest pixmas have chipped carts and can be refilled, but the ink monitoring done by the chips will not work. As far as I know, only one vendor currently has bulk ink for the new pixmas and no one has come up with an aftermarket cart yet. I'd bet they will soon as this will be a new market for these vendors and the older printers will eventually die, drying up the sales of the bci-6 inks. As far as refilling is concerned, the "i" series and the previous "ip" series (ip4000, 5000, 6000) have ink available from several good vendors and non-chipped carts that are plentiful. Pretty hard to find these printers now. Watch for vendors to come out with replacement carts, ink, and/or chip resetters for the new pixma series or try to find an ip4000 or ip5000 that might be on a closeout somewhere. I was able to find three ip5000's last month at a local Staples store for $100 each. Otherwise, they are now commanding premium prices!

 

[websnail]

When i went to MIS looking for what I wanted, I followed links on their website and not only did I not get the ink I wanted, one cartridge did not work.

Hi Klubber,

Just wanted you to know that MIS received a slew of feedback regarding their site and the key thing I noted was that the site was written with very little intention of it being the mammoth one that it is now.

Their problem is that the information was originally intended for a small subset of printers, and as each new printer system or ink types was added, it grew and grew and with it the amount of information to keep track of and update. As a result they've reached a point where the amount of time spent updating old pages and tracking information has become more work than processing orders.

At some point I strongly suspect the site will receive a complete re-design from the ground up so that updates are a lot simpler to achieve and information references will be to a single updatable record rather than duplicated and missed when updated. Either way, I understand your frustration and hopefully it's something that will be updated as things move on.

 

[klubber]

When i went to MIS looking for what I wanted, I followed links on their website and not only did I not get the ink I wanted, one cartridge did not work.

Hi Klubber,

Just wanted you to know that MIS received a slew of feedback regarding their site and the key thing I noted was that the site was written with very little intention of it being the mammoth one that it is now.

Their problem is that the information was originally intended for a small subset of printers, and as each new printer system or ink types was added, it grew and grew and with it the amount of information to keep track of and update. As a result they've reached a point where the amount of time spent updating old pages and tracking information has become more work than processing orders.

At some point I strongly suspect the site will receive a complete re-design from the ground up so that updates are a lot simpler to achieve and information references will be to a single updatable record rather than duplicated and missed when updated. Either way, I understand your frustration and hopefully it's something that will be updated as things move on.

Websnail.

Your comments are appreciated and I feel bad for attacking them so hard for being the straw that broke the camel's back so to speak. I have gone back to the sight and have seen that they have all ready made an effort to correct some of the issues I complained about. THey would not have as great a following that they have if they did not have good products, but they need to realize that the marketing of those products is as important as the quality itself. I am sorry I bought what I did from them only because it is not at all what i wanted. I just wanted refillable cartridges to use with my epson. Now as I go from page to page I get the feeling they don't even sell them unless you go the pigment route. But that was only after i searched the sight several different ways. Too much work

 

[websnail]

THey would not have as great a following that they have if they did not have good products, but they need to realize that the marketing of those products is as important as the quality itself.

Preaching to the choir on that one...

Communication or lack thereof is often what makes or breaks a companies reputation... Easier said than done sadly...