Arggggh: auto-reset chips driving me mad !!!

[pharmacist]

Yup: have a look at octoinkjet.co.uk for the waste ink bottle Definitely compulsory.

 

[kaliko]

The independent standing vs. master slave situation also existed way back since the R200 (10 years? now) days but lost its popularity.
If a channel has a non recognition reading, it could be the slave or it could be the master. You cannot determine which is the problem except through trial and error. So for example, if you're having a problem with Cyan...it could be the black channel master chip at fault.

Readers be aware that there exists two or more families of autoreset chips. The methodology of how they work are totally different.
For North American users, up to V6.0 of the T079xxx, an external resetter could be used. This included the SP1400. Thereafter, there appeared the Artisan 1430 to replace the SP1400. The first batches of Artisan 1430s were OK with the V6.0 chips. Then Epson changed the firmware and the V6.0 chips were no longer stable. The solution was the V6.12 chips. These operate on a totally different basis compared to the V6.0. The V6.0 could replace each OEM cartridge as it emptied and existed on its own. On the V6.12, they now operated on a master slave relationship. The Black chip is the master chip and the other 5 chips are slaves ( and are identical). So the master on the black channel does a lot of work. Various further small changes required that the chips be revised and is now up to V6.3. These master slave chips as you can figure out will not work with the external resetters....for obvious reasons. These master slave chips require a complete swapout. What if you mixed? I've tried it and the results are totally unpredictable. Sometimes it works but the ink levels are wrong!

The Artisan 50 can still run on the V6.0 chips as it was not in Epson's "focus" to meddle with that model since it is not a high volume item. On the 1430 where a lot more ink was to be used , Epson put some effort in.

The independent standing vs. master slave situation also existed way back since the R200 (10 years? now) days but lost its popularity.
If a channel has a non recognition reading, it could be the slave or it could be the master. You cannot determine which is the problem except through trial and error. So for example, if you're having a problem with Cyan...it could be the black channel master chip at fault.

I just had a problem possibly related to this on my 1430. I had just replaced the yellow a few days ago and the rest of the colors still showed at least 1/8 full. I noticed some slight banding on a recent print so i ran a clean cycle and then a nozzle check. The section where the stairstep pattern should have been for magenta was completely bare! Just a blank space on the paper!. I pulled the magenta cart and it was bone dry! I primed and refilled magenta and after the charge cycle the other carts started popping up refill requests on my computer. Only after refilling and replacing the remaining carts (C, LC, LM, K) did the magenta finally report empty! This was AFTER i had already refilled it from BONE DRY! This is the original prefilled set I got with the Precision Colors kit. Only the yellow I had refilled. How could the counter chip be this far off? BTW, yes, I had gotten air in the print head due to unknowingly letting magenta go completely dry. After reading Mikling's reply to a Feb. 2008 post I successfully "burped" it on the second clean cycle after waiting 24 hours.

 

[mikling]

The included instructions would have included a priming instructions page. Please take a look at that.
Now the cautious refillers advise to refill when it is low and is very sound advice is to trust the chips to an extent but not 100%. Even Epson does not trust the chip and that is the reason why they lost a lawsuit and followed with a real ink detector in the chip workings afterwards. Only those chips/OEM carts can be trusted with real ink monitoring. Even a precisely metered printer like the 3880 has about 12-15% reserve in the tanks! when empty. And that is OEM. Because Epson knows that the tracking of how much ink is used in each cleaning and other cycles will vary amongst cartridges.

So here is how their chip works, it will count down normally. However, if the ink detector still detects ink when the chip counts that it should be empty, the chip count is frozen and the printer will continue till the ink detector actually sees no ink. Then the empty flag is raised. Epson provides some leeway as to how long the freeze will hold and then it will finally override even the detector as well. Aftermarket reset chips do not have this as they only simulate the detection of ink. Epson's detection is physical contact with on these older printers. On their newest printers they have gone to optical.

So whenever it is low.....it is prudent to top it off anyways. This will avoid more work down the road and this advice is equally valid for Canon as well as Epson printers.

 

[kaliko]

The included instructions would have included a priming instructions page. Please take a look at that.
Now the cautious refillers advise to refill when it is low and is very sound advice is to trust the chips to an extent but not 100%. Even Epson does not trust the chip and that is the reason why they lost a lawsuit and followed with a real ink detector in the chip workings afterwards. Only those chips/OEM carts can be trusted with real ink monitoring. Even a precisely metered printer like the 3880 has about 12-15% reserve in the tanks! when empty. And that is OEM. Because Epson knows that the tracking of how much ink is used in each cleaning and other cycles will vary amongst cartridges.

So here is how their chip works, it will count down normally. However, if the ink detector still detects ink when the chip counts that it should be empty, the chip count is frozen and the printer will continue till the ink detector actually sees no ink. Then the empty flag is raised. Epson provides some leeway as to how long the freeze will hold and then it will finally override even the detector as well. Aftermarket reset chips do not have this as they only simulate the detection of ink. Epson's detection is physical contact with on these older printers. On their newest printers they have gone to optical.

So whenever it is low.....it is prudent to top it off anyways. This will avoid more work down the road and this advice is equally valid for Canon as well as Epson printers.

Mike, thank you for the valuable info. I wish it were easier to see the ink levels without removing the cartridges but I'll just have to be prudent and top off more frequently. I really don't want to lose all the sweat I did purging air out of the printhead. I think I was luckier than some, only needing 2 clean cycles to fix. I believe the key was to let the printer rest for a day. And yes, I did follow your instructions for priming - otherwise I wouldn't have even known to do that. I didn't have a priming tip but as your instructions stated, the bare syringe tip worked. I will request one with my next order.

 

[Apostolos]

What happens if we ignore the low indication and continue printing untill there is no ink. Other than having a poor printing will it cause any other problem? How does the printer behave?

For example, i have noticed something with the OEM inks. My black was pretty low, near empty and the other colors about 20-30%. I asked for a A3 poster printing, and the printer started printing with almost no black at all, but all the colors where 3 tones brighter. I'm guessing because it had an algorithm that estimated the minimum amount of black inkjeted to the other colors to print that last page with the remaining black. Of course after that the orange light of color lighted and asked for replacement.

I'm asking primarily for the 1500w, but also every kind of printer, with every kind of printhead. A quick tutorial would be welcomed!

 

[lin]

This resetter can be used on both original as well aftermarket chips, even auto reset chips.

pharmacist, Thank you so much for the info. Recently gotten the resetters. I should have gotten a chip resetter instead of the auto reset chip long time ago. Didn't know that the resetter work for aftermarket chip and even auto reset chip. Drive me mad with the auto reset chip, after resetting one color another color goes empty again. After resetting few colors, the first one that had been reset goes low again. Now at least with the resetter, I can reset all colors all together.

However I had a resetter that cannot reset an auto reset chip for a printer model because of it's a auto reset is a new version chip. I thought of trying the aftermark chip as an alternative, but realized the new aftermarket chip are smaller in size and won't fit the refillable cartridge chip holder and there is no smaller cartridge chip holder where I could buy to replace.

Add: I wonder if anyone know how we could mod the refillable cartridge chip holder so that we could fit/stick the EPSON original cartridge chip onto it?

 

[Apostolos]

.

Add: I wonder if anyone know how we could mod the refillable cartridge chip holder so that we could fit/stick the EPSON original cartridge chip onto it?

Excellent question!