Need Help, plan to buy xp600 and want to refill

[Mowerman90]

I've been using Canon Dye ink printers for many years and have refilled them all with great success. But, unfortunately, the Canons are getting harder to refill (if not impossible) and I "may" consider a CISS in the future. That's why I'm contemplating the switch to Epson. It looks like the XP600 would work for me and I've seen advertisements on the web for refillable carts and ARS chips. I need to know specifically, where to buy refillable carts? Would I be better off to just buy remanufactured
carts with new chips? If so, where from? I'm located in the USA if that matters. Thank you in advance.

 

[The Hat]

I've been using Canon Dye ink printers for many years and have refilled them all with great success. But, unfortunately, the Canons are getting harder to refill (if not impossible) and I "may" consider a CISS in the future. That's why I'm contemplating the switch to Epson. It looks like the XP600 would work for me and I've seen advertisements on the web for refillable carts and ARS chips. I need to know specifically, where to buy refillable carts? Would I be better off to just buy remanufactured
carts with new chips? If so, where from? I'm located in the USA if that matters. Thank you in advance.

Mikling has a fairly big write up on this printer here covering cartridges and refilling.

http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=65050#p65050

 

[doom2]

Hi Mowema90, I bought a CISS for my XP700 (same as XP600 but with disc print and touch screen) and not had good results compared to the Genuine Ink carts, but i'm still investigating as to why. I am awaiting ATM for Octoinkjet in the UK to get up to speed with the XP600/700/800 so I can continue my investigation by refilling some epson cartridges as described in that very informative thread by mikling in the post above. Just need to get my hand on some ARC chips for the carts to start my next test phase.

The problems i have seen are, very poor colour reproduction (very dark and lacking the vivid colours from the genuine) and horizontal lines in the printing even though the nozzle check is fine...

The Printer however is very nice when working on genuine carts for me.

 

[jtoolman]

Doom2
After changin from OEM inks to a 3rd party system you will often get a shift in quality. But Octoinkjet will answer that for you.
Did you do a head alignment after installing the ciss? Your banding could be because of that.

Joe

 

[mikling]

I have some T273 ARC chips and I have determined that the Epson designed capacity is a whopping 4ml, give or take. The XL which "nearly" doubles your capacity to 7-8ml is better. Both Epson and Canon have followed HP in giving small dribbles of ink inside carts. There is nothing wrong with 4ml for the light user but when you compare the refill cycle to prior printers such as the Artisan 7xx-8xx. You'll miss those discontinued printers.

There is one reason why Epson has gone to the pad contact over the prior ones.....Give CISS systems hell...just like Canon pad contact systems. The ink transfer mechanism is NOT pressure sealed. Any mismatch between ink characteristics and pad characteristics is going to pull air into the system. This is possibly waht you are going through.

Thus far, refilling the OEMs has been perfect. Not one head clean at all, always perfect printing using the standard 1082 Matte Pigment, 2094 Cyan, 6137 Magenta , 7049 Yellow and 1136 Photoblack. Plain paper printing color fidelity is fine. On photo paper, a green undertone has to be removed by ICC profiles. The newer screening pattern by Epson accentuates any differences between OEM and aftermarket more so than prior generations that used Claria. I am working on eliminating this requirement/ aspect.

 

[Mowerman90]

After doing a little more research I'm debating whether to get an XP600, or purchase a new Artisan 730 off of Ebay. As I see it the XP600 still has a few drawbacks, i.e difficulty finding aftermarket carts, CIS and ARC's. The Artisan is a proven performer that is universally loved by millions of users with a ready supply of carts, inks, CIS ARC's, etc. My only problem is that the Artisan has been discontinued and the only "new in unopened box" ones available are on Ebay and cost twice as much as I can buy a new XP600 for. So I'm asking you pros, "do you think the Artisan is worth the extra money, or should I take my chances with the XP600?"

 

[doom2]

jtoolman, Yes i did a head re-alignment, no improvement... I think mikling is on the right track though as the pad design of the CISS carts are way inferior in design to the Epson Originals as it would be expected but it is like a cotton wool pad to a nice neat symmetric synthetic weave pad, a total difference. Once i have sorted my lines issue with the help from Octoinkjet, I will start a new thread on how im best profiling my printer to what I see on the screen or the scanner.

Oh i must stress too that the CISS/INK is not from Octoinkjet.... They are being VERY helpful in trying to get my issues resolved in the best possible way.

 

[mikling]

After doing a little more research I'm debating whether to get an XP600, or purchase a new Artisan 730 off of Ebay. As I see it the XP600 still has a few drawbacks, i.e difficulty finding aftermarket carts, CIS and ARC's. The Artisan is a proven performer that is universally loved by millions of users with a ready supply of carts, inks, CIS ARC's, etc. My only problem is that the Artisan has been discontinued and the only "new in unopened box" ones available are on Ebay and cost twice as much as I can buy a new XP600 for. So I'm asking you pros, "do you think the Artisan is worth the extra money, or should I take my chances with the XP600?"

If you're going to print a lot of DVDs. Go straight to the Artisan. If you're a high volume user. GO straight to the Artisan. Epson has made the XP600 more like a Canon AIO, oriented towards more office work but still yielding good photos..low volume printing. the occasional photo. Not a bunch of them. The XP850 for considerably more money is tilted better against the Artisan 7xx-8xx. The 850 is considerably more money than the 600.

The fact is that the day of getting a high quality AIO that was oriented towards photos and excellent DVD printing as well reached a high point in the Artisan 7xx-8xx. Everything else is now downhill from that. Unfortunately we always felt that since the Artisans were flogged for little money, we thought that the same would continue. That pattern is now broken.... Canon fans also felt the pain with the new models as well.

 

[mikling]

jtoolman, Yes i did a head re-alignment, no improvement... I think mikling is on the right track though as the pad design of the CISS carts are way inferior in design to the Epson Originals as it would be expected but it is like a cotton wool pad to a nice neat symmetric synthetic weave pad, a total difference. Once i have sorted my lines issue with the help from Octoinkjet, I will start a new thread on how im best profiling my printer to what I see on the screen or the scanner.

Oh i must stress too that the CISS/INK is not from Octoinkjet.... They are being VERY helpful in trying to get my issues resolved in the best possible way.

Somewhat like someone ditching the Canon PGI-9 carts and turning towards those sponge based aftermarket carts. We all know how that story ends.

 

[Mowerman90]

I went ahead and ordered a Artisan 837 from Amazon. Kind of ticks me off that I had to pay more now than when this printer was in production but I'm confident that I'll be happy with it.

P.S. Mikling, thanks for all your help and I'll be ordering a "Ready2go" kit soon.