Life expectancy of refillable cartridges with ARC

[Ionlab]

Hi,
Today I had a conversation with one (local) supplier of refillable cartridges for my EPSON rx520. He mentioned two things that I think were a little weird.
1. ARC chips on the cartridges have a finite life (like 10 or so auto resets). Is it possible? Such a small lifecycle?
2. You cannot remove a non empty cartridge and perform an auto reset. In order to minimise the priming cycles I was planning on topping up all cartridges at the same time, taking advantage of the ARC. He said that the chip resets only after a low ink warning had occurred for that specific ink. He also mentioned that in any case I am not gaining anything since the priming cycle is performed ONLY on the ink changed, which is the exact opposite of what I thought, which is that no matter what cartridge is changed, during priming ink is wasted from all of them.

 

[palombian]

No experience with ARC chips.

But, since priming is done (at least in part) via the purge pump, I do not see how this can be done per cartridge.
I wouldn't be too concerned about the loss of 1ml (refill) ink.

 

[Ionlab]

Ink loss is not my concern. Only 10 uses out of a refillable cartridge is, if such a low number is true....

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I never heard something like that - I'm using old CISS on old R265 since years- see my comments here - post #18.
http://www.printerknowledge.com/threads/artisan-837-firmware-update.10579/page-2#post-89398
So I just don't believe point #1. It may happen, after some years that you (un)intentionally startet a firmware update, and then you may get some old cartridges rejected, but there is no counter in the cartridge chips. The firmware itself may count the total of cartridge changes, for maintenance reasons to have an usage indicator.

And yes, #2 - ARC chips only reset once the stored ink level has reached a particular low level as counted by the firmware, and detected by a LED sensor like in the old Canon IP4000, but this only with a few Epson cartridge types.

I'm not sure about the understanding of the 'priming' function, Epson, like the other printer manufacturers as well, does a head cleaning after a cartridge change, and this consumes ink, all colors which are sitting on the same cleaning unit. 'Priming' for me is an activity you only do once at the beginning - to get residual air out of the small ink channel as part of the cartdidge construction. Once the cartridges are primed, they are ready for use, and you would only do that again if you printed a cartridge completely empty, otherwise, during a normal refill cycle , there should not be air in this ink channel. It's not easy to describe, there are various constructions of cartridges around, some are pretty universal, and only the chip is different, or comes with a matching chip holder. Some printers only, like some Canon or Brother, have a separate cleaning pad for the black ink, that's the case when you can select that in the driver - cleaning black - colors only - all colors

 

[Ionlab]

Thank you for your responses...by priming i Mean the process (that you said is a cleaning cycle) that takes place when changing ink...
Is it allowed to suggest good refillable cartridges (in Europe preferably to keep shipping costs reasonable)?

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I got mine directly from China /Aliexpress and didn't have problems with them. I think most, if not all such cartridges, CISS etc are sourced from China anyway