Refilling carts with ink from leftover OEM cartrages

[crcinky]

Hi I'm new to the forum and hope someone has the answer to my question. I've looked in FAQ's and search and had no luck with it.

What I have is a dead C88+ Epson (petty sure it's dead it kind of smoked when I turned it on the other day).

Rather than get a new C88 I decided to get a work force 600 all in one. My problem now is that I now have two sets of C88 OEM Epson cartridges $$$$ that of course don't fit the 600 Both printers use dura-bright inks and as far as I can tell from days of looking the ink is probably the same.

So my question is has anyone here ever done anything like this before. I was thinking maybe something like the German method in reverse, sucking the ink out with a syringe, and then just shooting it into the 600's cartage when it gets low. Maybe even just drilling a big hole and letting it run out I'd kind of be worried about trash in the ink if I did it that way though. I guess I'd also need to reset the chip if I did this way.

Any tidbits of info from the forum will be appreciated.

Thanks
Chuck

 

[printfan1138]

Interesting thought there Crcinky! It might work but,( always a "but" huh?). I was thinking about it and the thought came to me that it would be really easy to make a lot of foam if you weren't really careful and foam is not something that is good in a printer as Im sure you already know. I'm getting ready to mix 2 brands of Dye based ( Claria) type inks in a cis system myself which is not the best idea I'm told, so I'm going to try to cut off the ink in the unit and start the new ink flow all at one time instead of mixing a lot of ink together in the bottles. Hey! I hope it works for both of us. Regards....printfan1138

 

[qwertydude]

Taking ink out is easy, simply use a syringe with no needle and press it into the ink outlet. It'll depress the valve allowing you to suck out the ink. Getting it into the new cartridge could be a hassle as you can't just force it through the outlet of the new cartridge. Also resetting the chip is a must.

 

[printfan1138]

Forgot to mention earlier that I have 3 Epson Stylus C-88+ printers with two using the pigmented ink but one is set up with a CIS and using Claria ( Type) dye based inks.It takes a bit of color adjustment to get the colors right but it works well on dye inks. It might be just my personal experience but it seems like when I have a problem with a color in one of these machines it is almost always with yellow not printing. Does anyone else find that to be the case? I just a few minutes ago printed a picture of our Big Yellow cat and I had to adjust the tint to look almost green on the monitor to come out near perfect on the final print using glossy photo paper fine adjustment. I'm using the adjustments in my I-Photo tools on an Imac. It sounds like Quertydude gave you some good advice there. By the way Epson last time I looked a few days ago was still selling their Epson 1400 printers for $149.00 refurbished and I have one for my wife. She really loves it and we are into several hundred Photo prints right now and counting. This printer produces the best pictures of any I have used so far. I set that one up with a CIS right at the start and the money saved on inks would buy 2 more 1400 printers already! We usually print full 8 1/2 by 11 photographs and are about to try printing 13x19 which is the next size up that this printer can do! I think I'm hooked on printing because I just realized I like it more than Hagan Das...well...almost! Regards Printfan1138

 

[crcinky]

Thanks fellows. Didn't think about the outlet hole idea but I'll give it a try. I also have a couple of replacement non OEM carts I can try it on first with no big loss to see how it works for me.