How much does an empty Epson P800 ink cartridge weigh... and why I need to know

[wannaby]

My short question is... how much does an empty Epson SureColor P800 OEM cartridge weigh?

p.s. I called Epson support, but they don't know the answer, so hopefully one of you knows.

---End of short question---

If you are curious why I'm asking, here's the long explanation:

After printing with two 3800s for many years, I purchased an Epson SureColor P800 about 2 months ago. I installed the "Initial" carts and knew from experience to prevent clogs by printing "regularly". I have been printing a photo at least every 3 to 5 days, although sometimes I've printed several days in a row and/or several prints in a day. However, I don't go over 5 days without printing.

Then the other day, I was printing banner-style from a roll. Halfway through the first print, the colors were suddenly "off" meaning that the pinks were lacking. (So this was not a double-color management issue or wrong profile issue.) The next print with blue skies was very greenish and the next print with oranges printed very faint. I cancelled the print and did a nozzle check which showed all 100% dashes *except* for VLM which had absolutely NO dashes. Completely blank!

The printer's Ink Level diagram on the LCD thinks I have plenty of ink in all colors, with the PK and VLM about the same. However, the PK cart weighs 106 g and the VLM cart weighs only 64 g, which is 42 grams less than the PK cart. All of the other carts weigh between 106 and 118 g. I am still using the original "Initial" OEM carts.

Based on the Ink Levels diagram and the fact that the low ink indicator never triggered, it seems odd the VLM cart is so lightweight. Also, I have been printing a variety of photos with colors across the board... not heavily toward magenta.

FWIW, the Usage History Sheet says I've printed 72 "A2 Equivalent Prints".

When I called and emailed Epson Support, they said I must have a clog and should run a cleaning. However, I do not want to run a cleaning if the cart is empty. They did admit that I could damage the Epson P800 if run without ink. So that is the reason for my question. I don't want to clean with an empty cart and ruin my 2-month old printer.

 

[stratman]

Scan, crop and post your nozzle check.

Based on your story, it seems unlikely that a complete "clog" developed in the middle of a print. More likely is lack of ink.

I do appreciate your curiosity and hope you get the answer you want. Still, you should insert a new cartridge and perform a nozzle check. Hopefully you will be back to printing. If not, then proceed to the cleaning recommended by Epson, redo a nozzle check and post here. Compare nozzle checks to see if any progress occurs.

 

[wannaby]

stratman, thanks for your reply. OK, attached are
1) a photo of the ink levels shown on the printer's LCD and
2) the nozzle check. I also wrote the weight in grams for each cart.

I ordered a new VLM cart and it's on the way, but I won't get it until Saturday.

 

[DANIEL TORRES]

Wannaby, any updates on your P800 vlm situation? Just curious, I have a 1yr old P800 too but never seen a nozzle check like that, even with 3rd party inks/cartridges.

 

[jpegman]

Not a P800 owner, but, the problem you describe has all the marking of an air block in the VLM line!

 

[pharmacist]

your cartridge is completely empty. I just weight an T580x cartridge for the epson Pro 3880, which is similar to the T850x cartridige used in the Epson P800 and the weight is 62 gram of which all the ink has be sucked out.

 

[J.Emmett Turner]

64g is totally bone dry, even without the ~15ml that is usually left behind when they report empty. That means you probably have air in the lines too.

This usually happens with the MK or PK due to the ink switch failing and leaking it all out into the capstand/maintenance cart (unbeknownst to the printer). If this were a nearly-identical T58 LM or T58 VLM I would suggest that whoever sold it to you had reset the chip on an empty/partially empty cart, but the T85 chips can't be easily reset for North American P800 users (I believe they can be for European users).

Another way for this to happen with a T85 VLM would be for a partially-empty chip to have been swapped with a chip reporting "Full" then printed well beyond the point where it would normally report empty. Guess ink could have been extracted to refill something else but I doubt that, since the T58/T85 is what most would want to extract it for (typically from larger, industrial-sized carts). Hope the vendor who sold you the ink cart wasn't pulling any of that trickery.

Anyway, getting air in the line typically requires a tech to reinitialize the machine with an adjustment program, which means wasting well over a hundred dollars of ink. Basically, you replace all 9 carts with new carts (~$765!) and then do the first-time ink initialization charge a second time. The first time it purged 9 lines of air to charge them with ink but this time it will purge 8 lines of ink to get the air out of the ninth. Of course, it all goes into the maintenance tank during the re-initialization, which means they'll possibly need to replace that too ($40).

I believe initialization uses something like 20% of a cart's ink so that's a lot of wasted ink... not even counting the drained T85 VLM cart. I sure hope these guys take care of it under warranty.

I had PK go completely dry on my Pro 3880 due to the ink switch failure and managed to recover from it. Well, actually I bought it that way with no warranty. Point is, I dealt with the ink switch then managed to charge the line myself without a service tech or ink initialization or adjustment program (the software a tech would use for re-initialization). Unfortunately, I did it by abusing the damper purge that happens when you switch between MK and PK and you can't exactly do that with VLM. If I had to recover from your issue myself I'd find some way to pressurize the VLM cart to selectively push that ink through without doing the full re-initialization. Of course, this does nothing to fix any issue that may have caused it to drain empty in the first place so I'd hope the cart was drained one of the ways I mentioned above as opposed to some other issue that remains with the printer.

Good luck with this!

 

[wannaby]

Wow, I feel like I stepped into the Twilight Zone or something. I just discovered your replies from last year. Seems I had set up an email filter that moved the emails to a folder and bypassed the Inbox. I had no clue until now. Apologies to everyone who took the time to reply.

Well, the last year has been really crazy (for more than one reason), but hopefully I can recall what happened with the P800 at the time. Those who said the cartridge was empty are correct. The cart was bone dry and the lines too. I had found two places on the Epson website stating that running the printer dry could damage the printheads. Many people have also said this in forums.

I refused to do a cleaning on the empty cart as I had been told by support. Instead, I installed a new VLM cartridge and I could hear the printer pushing the ink through the lines. As soon as it was done, I did a nozzle check and all the VLM dashes were there. In one pass. That and the empty cart lead me to believe that there was no clog. Otherwise, there would have been a dash or two missing. However, there was the nagging question about what the heck happened to all the missing VLM ink. Secondly, what if any damage was done to the printheads to my new printer after I kept printing with no VLM ink???

I eventually was able to exercise the warranty and get a replacement. However, it really took a lot of phone calls talking with a different rep each time and scanning in photos, nozzle checks and level charts and sending emails to finally make my case. Even technical support could not give a better answer other than to speculate that the starter cartridge might not have been full. I did purchase the printer directly from Epson and am almost 100% sure there was no switcharoo of a nearly-empty cart. I think I would have noticed if the VLM cart came that low, but then again I can't be 100% certain. The only other possible cause I can think of was a malfunction that was causing the VLM ink to drain into the maintenance cart. I didn't think to weigh the maintenance cart at the time, although I'm not sure what conclusion I could have reached with that info.

All things considered, I reasoned that there was some sort of malfunction with the printer. The replacement printer has been working just fine and I just weighed all the carts to ensure there wasn't anything amiss with this copy. So far, so good and keeping fingers crossed.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to answer my post.