advice needed on Epson chip resetter

[Daniel Lenski]

Hi all,

I have an Epson CX3810 inkjet printer/copier/scanner. It's not fancy but
I like it because it's well-supported under Linux.

The printer part has stopped working, claiming that all of the color
cartridges are empty. I haven't actually printed anything with them in
at least a year. I think it has just decided they have "expired" based
on their age.

If I get an Epson chip resetter, will it be able to fix this issue? Will
resetting the unused color cartridges convince the printer to work
again? It seems silly to buy a bunch of expensive color cartridges that
I'm not gonna use. Is there any good reason not to get the cheapest
compatible chip resetter from eBay?

Thanks,
Dan

 

[Jan Alter]

--

Hi all,

I have an Epson CX3810 inkjet printer/copier/scanner. It's not fancy but
I like it because it's well-supported under Linux.

The printer part has stopped working, claiming that all of the color
cartridges are empty. I haven't actually printed anything with them in
at least a year. I think it has just decided they have "expired" based
on their age.

If I get an Epson chip resetter, will it be able to fix this issue? Will
resetting the unused color cartridges convince the printer to work
again? It seems silly to buy a bunch of expensive color cartridges that
I'm not gonna use. Is there any good reason not to get the cheapest
compatible chip resetter from eBay?

Thanks,
Dan

It took me awhile to figure out and believe that OEM cartridges could
actually expire without being used up, but I came to that conclusion after a
number of cartridges simply registered as unusable in a number of C82
printers I worked with at school a few years ago. Resetting the cartridge
should get you back in business. Do be aware that Epson recommends removing
a cartridge that has been sitting in the printer after 6 months.
Understandibly the thought is that the ink carrrier liquid oxidizes and
thickens causing the possiblity of a head clog. I've been using third party
ink for 15 years with Epsons and as long as the ink is of good quality there
has been no problem using it.
I have used MIS compatible inks with C80, C82, C84, and C88 printers
with excellent results. Below I've given the link for their chip resetter.
Unless you already know a company on ebay I would wait for a recommendation
or simply take the chance that it'll be OK if you don't mind risking the $.

http://www.inksupply.com/epson_inkjet_cartridge_chip_resetter.cfm


Jan Alter
(e-mail address removed)

 

[Daniel Lenski]

It took me awhile to figure out and believe that OEM cartridges could
actually expire without being used up, but I came to that conclusion
after a number of cartridges simply registered as unusable in a number
of C82 printers I worked with at school a few years ago. Resetting the
cartridge should get you back in business. Do be aware that Epson
recommends removing a cartridge that has been sitting in the printer
after 6 months. Understandibly the thought is that the ink carrrier
liquid oxidizes and thickens causing the possiblity of a head clog. I've
been using third party ink for 15 years with Epsons and as long as the
ink is of good quality there has been no problem using it.

Thank you, Jan! I'm glad to hear that this "expiration" mis-feature is
real, and it's not likely to be a problem with something else in the
printer.

I have used MIS compatible inks with C80, C82, C84, and C88 printers
with excellent results. Below I've given the link for their chip
resetter. Unless you already know a company on ebay I would wait for a
recommendation or simply take the chance that it'll be OK if you don't
mind risking the $.

http://www.inksupply.com/epson_inkjet_cartridge_chip_resetter.cfm

Well, that's a very good price. Have you used the T060{1/2/3/4}
cartridges with that resetter by any chance? They have chips with 7 pins.

Dan

 

[Jan Alter]

Thank you, Jan! I'm glad to hear that this "expiration" mis-feature is
real, and it's not likely to be a problem with something else in the
printer.


Well, that's a very good price. Have you used the T060{1/2/3/4}
cartridges with that resetter by any chance? They have chips with 7 pins.

Dan

The chip resetter should work fine with your cartridges. They are the same
as the ones I've used in the C88+. I refill spongeless cartridges with ARC
chips (auto reset chips), which eliminates chip resetting altogether.

 

[Dan Lenski]

The chip resetter should work fine with your cartridges. They are the same
as the ones I've used in the C88+. I refill spongeless cartridges with ARC
chips (auto reset chips), which eliminates chip resetting altogether.

Thanks! Ordered it.

I'm too lazy to have gotten into cartridge refilling yet, but I know
that my non-OEM cartridges are supposed to be refillable, so I'll have
to try that someday.

Dan

 

[Arthur Entlich]

I do not believe Epson cartridges have a date code involved.

Although the Durabrite inks such as used by your printer, are probably
best used within a year of being opened and installed, I do not believe
the printer or cartridges keep track of this.

The ink cartridges do "run out" of ink even if not used, (if only black
is used) due to the cleaning cycles which use all inks together. These
cleaning cycles occur on start up, when you change any cartridge, or if
you manually request one, and a few other circumstances.

So, they may be ut of ink". If you do a lot of cleaning cycles while
the heads are clogged, the printer and chip will assume each cycle
removed a certain amount of ink, but if clogged that ink doesn't get
removed, but the amount that was supposed to be removed is still
recorded as gone. That ink can be retrieved via a chip resetter, but if
the heads are still clogged the problem remains.


Durabrite ink printers clog easily if left unused. If you'd like some
information on trying to unclog the heads, please email me and
indicating which printer you are using, and I will email you a free
manual. I do not sell or trade names nor spam.

Art

Send a request to:

e-printerhelp(at)mvps(dot)org

(at) = @
(dot) = .




If you are interested in issues surrounding e-waste,
I invite you to enter the discussion at my blog:

http://e-trashtalk.spaces.live.com/

 

[Jan Alter]

Hi Art,

I'm not sure how to prove whether or not they do keep a date stored as
to when a cartridge was inserted into the head, but I used to have a fair
number of issues with the C82 and a couple times with the C80 printers
having cartridges that were unusable (not empty) but the message simply
stating that the cartridge was unusable. I would take the cartridge out and
compare by heft to the new one that they were often practically full. This
situation would happen often after the summer and a couple of months of
disuse. I didn't have the problem with C84, or C88 printers. It simply
didn't occur to me at the time that I should use the chip resetter on them
and see what it would do. I would just replace the cartridge and get the
teacher back in business.

 

[Don Phillipson]

I have an Epson CX3810 inkjet printer/copier/scanner.. . .
The printer part has stopped working, claiming that all of the color
cartridges are empty. I haven't actually printed anything with them in
at least a year. I think it has just decided they have "expired" based
on their age.

If you left the printer with cartridges in place but not
connected with power, the heads may have gummed up.
It is increasingly common for printers to run their
cleaning cycle at preset intervals in order to prevent
this. Most manuals advise about storage viz. whether
cartridges should be removed or not.

 

[Daniel Lenski]

The chip resetter should work fine with your cartridges. They are the
same as the ones I've used in the C88+. I refill spongeless cartridges
with ARC chips (auto reset chips), which eliminates chip resetting
altogether.

Thanks for the advice! I received my chip resetter yesterday, reset all
my cartridges and... presto, the printer works again.

I printed a test page and all the colors (4 years old, original) and the
black cartridge (2 years old) turned out great. Woohoo!

Dan

 

[Dan Lenski]

I do not believe Epson cartridges have a date code involved.

Although the Durabrite inks such as used by your printer, are probably
best used within a year of being opened and installed, I do not believe
the printer or cartridges keep track of this.

The ink cartridges do "run out" of ink even if not used, (if only black
is used) due to the cleaning cycles which use all inks together.  These
cleaning cycles occur on start up, when you change any cartridge, or if
you manually request one, and a few other circumstances.

So, my memory is a little fuzzy... but I *do* remember seeing the "ink
remaining" level of the cartridges decrease noticeably even without
using them. It sounds like this is due to the cleaning, as you
describe!

However, when the cartridges just stopped working, it was more
sudden. The reported ink level might've been at something like 40%,
then I powered-on the printer and all of the cartridges were shown as
having zero ink remaining. So I'm not really sure what happened here.

It does seem highly impractical for the printer to keep track of /how
long/ the cartridges have been in use. They would have to have some
kind of unique serial number and the printer would need some non-
volatile memory in order for this to work. And also, it would
presumably mean that the printer would keep zero-ing out cartridges
that have been refilled and/or reset, which doesn't happen (does
it???).

So, they may be ut of ink".  If you do a lot of cleaning cycles while
the heads are clogged, the printer and chip will assume each cycle
removed a certain amount of ink, but if clogged that ink doesn't get
removed, but the amount that was supposed to be removed is still
recorded as gone.  That ink can be retrieved via a chip resetter, but if
the heads are still clogged the problem remains.

Durabrite ink printers clog easily if left unused.  If you'd like some
information on trying to unclog the heads, please email me and
indicating which printer you are using, and I will email you a free
manual.  I do not sell or trade names nor spam.

I must have got lucky, but I may take you up on that manual for the
future! Mine works just perfectly after months of disuse. Well, I
would power it on every week or two to use as a scanner. Do you think
the printer attempts to clean/unclog the heads even if the cartridges
report themselves as empty?

Dan

 

[Dan Lenski]

Hi Art,

I'm not sure how to prove whether or not they do keep a date stored
as
to when a cartridge was inserted into the head, but I used to have a
fair number of issues with the C82 and a couple times with the C80
printers having cartridges that were unusable (not empty) but the
message simply stating that the cartridge was unusable. I would take the
cartridge out and compare by heft to the new one that they were often
practically full. This situation would happen often after the summer and
a couple of months of disuse. I didn't have the problem with C84, or C88
printers. It simply didn't occur to me at the time that I should use the
chip resetter on them and see what it would do. I would just replace the
cartridge and get the teacher back in business.

Interesting... my printer simply reported them as empty, not unusable.
Perhaps if I were running Windows and using the Epson printer status
utility, I'd have gotten more information. But escputil (Linux Epson
utility) definitely showed all the ink as empty.

Hmm...

Dan

 

[Tom Lake]

It does seem highly impractical for the printer to keep track of /how
long/ the cartridges have been in use. They would have to have some
kind of unique serial number and the printer would need some non-
volatile memory in order for this to work. And also, it would
presumably mean that the printer would keep zero-ing out cartridges
that have been refilled and/or reset, which doesn't happen (does
it???).

The cartridge keeps track of how long it's been in service. I've taken an
outdated cartridge that stopped working on one Epson, put it in another
and it still refused to work until it was reset.

Tom Lake

 

[Joel]

The cartridge keeps track of how long it's been in service. I've taken an
outdated cartridge that stopped working on one Epson, put it in another
and it still refused to work until it was reset.

Tom Lake

You are probably right on this one, I am using the ACR cartridges (Auto
Chip Reset) and at the beginning I can refill/change the cartridge anytime I
want and the ink level always reset to FULL. But lately, I have to wait for
the RX680 to report the ink is emptied then I can refill and the cartridge
will be reset to FULL, and only the ones report emptied not all like used
to.

And no probably with the Chip Resetter (I have both ACR and Chip Resetter
which I used on the original cartridges).

 

[Arthur Entlich]

Hi Dan,

If the printer reads the cartridges as empty (even one of them) it will
not attempt any cleaning cycles. The reason is because they want to
avoid any head going dry, as it then is very likely to dry up and clog.

I don;t really know why your cartridges would suddenly indicate either
empty of simply not functional,. after being at about 40%. Some printer
brands do monitor dates, or at least have a packaged date and after a
certain time they simply will not work even if new out of the box. I
don't believe Epson is one of these brands, but Epson is continually
adding "security" to their cartridge ink firmware.

Security in this case, means ways to force you to buy more ink
cartridges, more often.

Art


If you are interested in issues surrounding e-waste,
I invite you to enter the discussion at my blog:

http://e-trashtalk.spaces.live.com/

 

[Arthur Entlich]

I get occasional reports from people that the firmware just gets
confused, sometimes when just one cartridge is replaced (particularly if
the new cartridge is 3rd party) and the printer just forgets the ink
levels completely, and set them all to zero.

Art


If you are interested in issues surrounding e-waste,
I invite you to enter the discussion at my blog:

http://e-trashtalk.spaces.live.com/

 

[Daniel Lenski]

I get occasional reports from people that the firmware just gets
confused, sometimes when just one cartridge is replaced (particularly if
the new cartridge is 3rd party) and the printer just forgets the ink
levels completely, and set them all to zero.

Gotcha. That's a possibility. I had been replacing the black ink
cartridges with much cheaper non-OEM cartridges, and I think I did it
around the time the printer zeroed all the ink levels. Hard to say,
since I usually leave it on for days or weeks, and it might not have
appeared empty until power-cycled.

Dan

 

[Dan Lenski]

The cartridge keeps track of how long it's been in service. I've taken
an outdated cartridge that stopped working on one Epson, put it in
another and it still refused to work until it was reset.

Tom Lake

But how, exactly, can the cartridge do that?

The cartridge doesn't actually contain a real-time clock chip, does it??

If not, how could it figure out how long it has been in service? For
that matter, the *printers* don't contain real-time clocks either. Okay,
maybe some of the fancier networked ones with embedded OSes do. But
certainly not my CX3810...

So I don't understand how this timed expiration could work, frankly...

Dan

 

[Arthur Entlich]

Some cartridges do actually have an expiration date programmed in the
chip, and the printer can refer to the computer date as a reference.

Although most printers do not maintain a real-time clock and date, most
do have some type of timer built in that maintains a runtime or elapsed
time so they know how long between on and off cycles, or when cleaning
cycles need to be scheduled.

Some printers may actually allow for real-time clock setting with a back
up CMOS and battery backed up clock.

However, I agree with you that this isn't common in the lower end printers.

Art

If you are interested in issues surrounding e-waste,
I invite you to enter the discussion at my blog:

http://e-trashtalk.spaces.live.com/