Epson - Excellent Printers, shame about the Ink Monitor Scam

[mattrixdesign2]

Hi ALL

I have an Epson RX420 Printer/Scanner/Copier - it is an excellnt piece of kit and prints good photos!

The thing that bothers me is the ink monitor, it has been warning me the cartridge is running out which is fine! However I made an attempt to print off some photos and run the ink out. But before I could finish off the batch of photos the ink monitor insisted that I had totally run out and refused to print any more, even though the last picture it printed was fine so I supect there is at least enough ink in there to print a few more decent picies!

My question is, is there any way to disable the print monitor or fool it into thinking it has enough ink? I dont think it is fair to be forced to buy more ink when my cartridge isn't yet empty. I am also dubious as to how much ink was in the cartridges supplied with my printer - BIG SCAM I guess.

[Mr.D]

Just buy some cheaper generic cartridges from ink-king or somewhere.

[Werner]

this has been covered before, but basically, with epson printers, the prink tanks only hold ink (which is why they are cheaper than lexmark etc). With lexmark, the print cartidge contains the print head too.

So, if you have a lexmark, when you replace the ink cartidge you replace the print head.(£20-£30)

With epson, replacing the ink cartidge replenishes the ink only.(£3-£10)

What happens is that the print heads require ink to act as a lubricant of sorts...you can run a lexmark dry without worries, because your new cartidge will give you a new print head too, so ruining the old head isnt an issue. With epson, running the cartidge dry will ruin the print head over time, which is why the ink monitor will alert you and refuse to print when the amount of ink left is getting very low, to avoid damage to the print head.

It is for your own good, and for the good of your pocket to replace the ink tanks when the ink monitor tells you to. For £3-£5 for epson ink (compared to £25-£30 for lexmark etc) you can sort of see why it would be cheaper to just replace the ink when needs be, rather than risk ruining the print head. Being stingy is good, being too stingy is bad.:-)

Hope this helps

[mattrixdesign2]

Originally Posted by Mr.D

Just buy some cheaper generic cartridges from ink-king or somewhere.

no way, been there done that, and my printer stopped printing and clogged up! It ended up in the bin.

[mattrixdesign2]

Originally Posted by Werner

this has been covered before, but basically, with epson printers, the prink tanks only hold ink (which is why they are cheaper than lexmark etc). With lexmark, the print cartidge contains the print head too.

So, if you have a lexmark, when you replace the ink cartidge you replace the print head.(£20-£30)

With epson, replacing the ink cartidge replenishes the ink only.(£3-£10)

What happens is that the print heads require ink to act as a lubricant of sorts...you can run a lexmark dry without worries, because your new cartidge will give you a new print head too, so ruining the old head isnt an issue. With epson, running the cartidge dry will ruin the print head over time, which is why the ink monitor will alert you and refuse to print when the amount of ink left is getting very low, to avoid damage to the print head.

It is for your own good, and for the good of your pocket to replace the ink tanks when the ink monitor tells you to. For £3-£5 for epson ink (compared to £25-£30 for lexmark etc) you can sort of see why it would be cheaper to just replace the ink when needs be, rather than risk ruining the print head. Being stingy is good, being too stingy is bad.:-)

Hope this helps

Thanks for the info, never thought about it that way! Still I think for the printer companies there is a lot of profit to be made from consumables, rather than hardware, they must be overly cautions on their warnings. But I have taken your point and will go and get some catridges - shame they all ran out at the same time

[MikeC]

out of curiosity, has anyone taken their old epson cartrige apart to look at the sensor ?

You might be surprised.

When I last looked, there were no wires or any other connection (that I could see) from the chip to the ink well for the chip to know that it was empty.

Me-thinks it may simply work on approximate hours of usage or something like that....

Could be wrong tho.....

Originally Posted by mattrixdesign2

no way, been there done that, and my printer stopped printing and clogged up! It ended up in the bin.

I use Cyberjet on my R200 at £3.00 for a FULL SET of 6 carts there a steal and i have printed 1000's of pictures and the Printer is still going strong

For originals your looking at £30 - £60 a set so i have prob saved £1000's of poubds on ink so far, in fact i would not be bothered if the printer packed in as there only £60 to buy more than worth it to use compatibles over originals

[rdhir]

depending on your printer or software version, you can uninstall the print monitor. Also beware of cheap epson cartridges, some of them have use by dates and epson drivers refuse to work with ones with expired dates. I had this problem once with my 2000P but luckily it was a reputable shop and they refunded my money, even though I had obviously opened and unsealed them.

Cheers

Rajiv

[Pulsar]

Originally Posted by betamac

I use Cyberjet on my R200 at £3.00 for a FULL SET of 6 carts there a steal and i have printed 1000's of pictures and the Printer is still going strong

Hi,

Can you tell me where I can buy these cartridges please?

Cheers

Rob

[Steve.J.Davies]

http://www.blankdiscshop.co.uk/acatalog/allepson.html

two sets for a R200/300 for 7.71 gbp.

I use 'em with no probs.

If you want to avoid the ink low message to squeeze the ink out of your expensive carts try printing from Linux. Have never seen that message on Linux only on Windaz.

[rdhir]

yup, its built into the Windows driver. If you attach any epson by a network print server then you don't get the message either.

Cheers

Rajiv

[mattrixdesign2]

Ordered The T0556 Pack (all 4 colours + 100pcs of photo paper) for £26.99 (inc free postage) from "Cartridge People", I ordered yesterday goods arrived today! Good service, and looks like I got a good price, can any one beat that price on Genuine Epson carts? (Type T0551,2,3,4 + paper).