Is Refilling OEM Carts for P600 an Option?

[Greatwhitewing]

I have been leaning towards aftermarket refillable carts and aftermarket ink. But just wondering before making my decision if refilling the OEM carts is a viable option for Epson Surecolor P600.

My google search was futile..

 

[mikling]

The P600 carts are similar to the R3000 which are an expanded cart like that of the SP1400 Artisan 1430. The chip system in the OEM has a sensor which causes the chip to burn a circuit out if it drops below a certain level. That is not a stumbling block if you reset early. However the physical valve system within the cart needs to be overcome and this has been demonstrated with various tools and the "popping" of the valve as demonstrated by Joe years ago. It is not a simple task.

Considering that the aftermarket carts do work well, and are much easier to refill even in situ, there is little reason not to use them. The only advantage to the OEM is that hte sensor does actually sense an out of ink condition towards the end and will prevent the printer from trying to operate when a tank is actually depleted. ONLY the last out of ink condition is real on the OEM sensor, as it is an on/off circuit, the intermdiate levels are also simulated. This sensor is wholly electronically simulated in an aftermarket and it is incumbent on the user's part to ensure that the printer will not be used in an actual physical ink out situation. Ink levels sensors are passive dumb circuits. Please repeat/reread and digest.

If you think you want to wholly depend on an electronic sensors and want and do not want to top off at intervals or visually check, then only an OEM solution is carefree and dependable, otherwise the act of having savings on printing require some work to reap those savings. Some might think this statement is offensive but it is not as some users come to think that ink sensing ink level circuits actually occurs. No , they are just dumb counters that can easily be fooled and will always be inaccurate, hence the last physical check with on/off even in an OEM cart.

Running out of ink can/will cause havoc on these remote tank printers. This is the single most important issue when refilling these type of machines. Canon also recognizes this as well as they went to the trouble of including an out of ink circuit in their Pro-1 whereas in the Pro-10 it is wholly simulated even on OEM on the Pro-10. The difference, the pro-1 runs on remote tanks and the Pro-10 does not. With Epson, rather than include sensors, they instead accomodate the errors via a more generous reserve on larger machines. A long story that included class action suits.

 

[Greatwhitewing]

Thanks for the detailed reply a lot of which I will need to re-read several times to fully digest. I do get the main points the OEM carts have some issues but indeed possible and aftermarket carts have the minor, IMHO, downside of ensuring the carts never run out ink as their downside. The only potential issue I see with aftermarket carts are when there are multiple users and the maintenance guy (me) looses track of ink being used... This will be a shared printer.

Out of pure curiosity how does one get the into INTO an OEM cartridge. Not looking for detailed procedure, just the general steps. Drilling holes? Etc?

And again out of pure idle curiosity are my OEM carts worth something to someone? Under what conditions? Before or after low ink warning?