Can I use my WF-7710 with empty ARC carts?

[kanonvater]

This may sound like an odd question, but I have (I think) a good reason for it.

You just can't find decent, affordable standalone flatbed A3 size scanners, so I've just bought an Epson WF-7710 solely for its big scanner.

I pulled out the packing stuff, turned it on, and set the country/language/date/time stuff it asked for.

Then it insisted that I install the ink cartridges.

I can't find any way to bypass this step.

The thing is, I really don't want to ever print with this machine. All I want to do is scan. But obviously, it has other ideas. That's understandable, I guess, since Epson makes all its money on selling ink, and probably little if any on selling printers.

If I put in the starter carts now, I suspect that every time I turn on the machine to scan, it will clean the printhead, until the carts are empty. Then I'll have to replace them, just to scan.

So my question:

Can I buy empty refillable ARC carts now, and without filling them, put them in the printer in place of the "starter" carts?

Will the printer go through its priming dance with no ink in the carts, and then happily scan to my heart's content?

Or is the printer smart enough to know (1) that these aren't the original Epson starter carts, and/or (2) they don't really have any ink in them, even though the chip says they do?

Has anybody ever ignored the starter carts and just gone straight to refillable ARCs?

Thanks!

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

'The unit is made to operate as a stand alone copier first - scanning + printing, only the printing consumes ink and let Epson earn money by selling you ink - scanning alone gets them out of business with you.
Yes, you can cheat the unit this way with 'fake' ink in refill cartridges if you never want to print again with that unit. But you may do something else - buy those refill cartridges and get the cheapest ink available or a cleaner and use those in the cartridges, this would keep the printer operational if you want to print some of your A3 copies now or later. The printer is not doing that many cleaning cycles , only now and then and at power up, if you completely turn it off after scanning. And there is another element you need to consider - the waste ink container - the counter is running down even if you would not use any ink in the cartridges the firmware does not know that.
Yes, you can start off with such refill cartridges but never use those starter cartridges again - they are blocked by firmware once you use another set of cartridges, you can throw them away, nobody else can use them either for the same reason.
If you do not use the starter cartridges and just use empty refill cartridges you may be able to start using the printer normally later since it was not in contact with ink at all in this case causing any clogs in the meantime.

 

[kanonvater]

"Yes, you can cheat the unit this way with 'fake' ink in refill cartridges..."

Thank you, that's welcome information!

"The printer is not doing that many cleaning cycles , only now and then and at power up..."

Does it ever do a cleaning cycle while just sitting idle, without being asked to print something? (I think that Canon printers do that, do Epson?)

"But you may do something else - buy those refill cartridges and get the cheapest ink available or a cleaner and use those in the cartridges, this would keep the printer operational if you want to print some of your A3 copies now or later."

That's an interesting idea! Then I could say to my sweetie, who sometimes asks me to scan items and print them for her, "You can make 'photocopies' yourself."

Precision Colors offers a less expensive refilling kit for this printer, with ARC carts and DYE-BASED inks.

Do I understand it right, that if one uses the printer only a little (she would make 'photocopies' maybe a few times per year), dye inks are less likely to clog the printhead?

Thanks again for the response!

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

yes, you could run your printer with dye inks, and it is common belief that dye inks would cause less clogging than pigment inks, but I must admit I have not seen specific tests confirming that assumption. But since dye inks are not that expensive it would not cost you much to do a copy or a print now and then to keep the printer going. About everybody is used to put the smartphone on the charger about every day, so why not doing some regular action as well with the printer. I'm printing too much to know if your model would do some internal activity on a timer base.

 

[kanonvater]

Thanks, ISF, that sounds like a good plan.