Important Information for Epson Inkjet Users

[Grumpy]

Most of you are aware how recent Court victories by Epson have dried up the legitimate compatibles market. The result was a resurgence in refilling the Epson cartridges. However, just to add to our frustration, it appears that Epson is now designing their chips to self destruct when the tank is deemed to be empty, resulting in a chip that cannot be reset. We have been told that the first cartridge series' to be affected will be the T069, and T078. We will post any new information we receive, and hope that others will share their knowledge with us here on the forum.

 

[Simon R.]

Yep,

Epson are going after the Epson compatible inkjet cartridges' resellers for some time now.

 

[mikling]

The level detector is the fail safe that physically verifies ink levels and allows users to use as much of the ink as possible. This is unlike the previous generation that guessed when the tank was supposed to be empty. I guess it was like driving a car with a fuel gauge based on the avg fuel efficiency, without actually measuring the gas inside the tank. the tank estimates based on how many spark ignitions have taken place!

Well we can thank grumpy users who took Epson to court and won their case. So Epson did the fuse thing because with the previous generation, people would use resetters and continue to use their cartridge till it was dry and then get air in the head and then claimed it was clogged even when a new cartridge was installed and created a raft of service problems. This fuse guarantees that a true empty cartrdige cannot be reset and reused to create service problems.
You can bet adding a physical detector to each cartridge adds costs.....no desktop printer has done that before.

Even on the BCI-6 cartridges, the printer will indicate empty when there is a reserve of ink contained within the sponge. So how come no law suit? There's still ink in there.

Sometimes, be careful what you wish for...the consequence is sometimes worse. In this case it is.

The only solution is what the compatibles market has created. Have a chip that counts like the old ones do but simulate the ink level detector that always says ink is adequate. I imagine that these chips can be retrofitted to the Epson originals but when someone cannot refill themself, you can bet they're going to suck the ink dry.

Some have been having some success by resetting the 9 pin cartridges before the ink level detector is tripped as being empty. Now try harvesting these cartridges to be remanufactured. Who's going to want to give up 25% to 30% of their original cartridge to reap $2-$3 at most for the good empty when these are turned in to be remanned? It just ain't worth it. I say use it till it's empty. Therein lies the re manufactured cartridge catch. If you offer enough incentive to turn in a cartridge, it makes the cartridge too expensive to reman. A reman cartridge will then only save a nominal amount PLUS you don't get the real CLARIA ink. Good strategy on Epson's part. Consumers who can't afford OEM stuff however, suffer.

 

[arista]

Has anyone any experience of compatible cartridges now failing with Epson printers? I would be interested to know how these cartridges are now performing. Do the level detectors on compatibles fail?