(e-mail address removed) wrote in @i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
Awhile ago I was considering buying bottled after-market ink formulated
for Epson printers, but a very experienced friend whose judgement I
trust told me he ruined a printer using ink which had been formulated
for his brand of printer--NOT the garbagey universal kind which gunks
up everything.
I did notice some places online do sell the official cartridges for
less than retail store prices. But which offer the best prices and
reliability? I'd appreciate feedback on the best discount places to
obtain Epson printer ink. Thanks for any and all advice and help.
Cori
Please don't crosspost.
The fact is (without sounding anti-refill) epson's are among the most
sensitive. and blocked heads are a regular occurance for them,
regardless of the ink or cartridge.
I would reccomend buying bulk ink and refilling them still, just make
sure its formuated correct.
Don't panic if after a refill you have nothing printing, this is an epson
trait due to cartridge design, justdon't continue printing like this else
you will burn the heads out.
the epson cartridge, if you don;t fill it from the extake (which is a
slow and messy way of doing it) has a habbit of getting air in the
sponge, and if you just tell it to do 500 head cleans, may solve it, may
burn the heads out.
the best bet is fill it the conventional way, then go outside on the road
or somewhere you can make a mess, and flick the cartridge, or hit it
against a desk, till ink clearly comes out. this garentees the ink is at
the bottom of the sponge and you don;t have an air pocket, give it a
second thorough head clean before starting to print.
The main reason people kill epsons is not filling the cartridge properly,
or having a leaking cartridge, which means the ink runs where it
shouldn't and blocks the heads that way, and the head cleaning system on
epsons is NOT that good.
If you get blocked heads...
theres several ways of cleaning, if you want the safest result, buy
commercial head cleaner, get a syringe (no needle), push it over the ink
intake (with paper towelling or alike under it) and gently push some
through the heads.
Distilled water next best, filtered water next, pure alcahol (ie, 99% or
so) is the harshest, be sure to go overboard.
the head cleaner built into the printers (as of when I was repairing
them) were rubbish, and old dried ink would slowly build up on it and
cover the nozzles. this again has nothign to do with the ink used. but
is beyond even the squeezing through with a syringe, but dissasembly to
clean.
Most "dead" epsons just need general maintenance.
