Epson C64 Colour usage

[Meryl]

Hi,
We have 8 of these printers that we use to print BW text only documents
on.
Recently they have started to stop running because the colour ink tanks are
empty!
We do have the print in B/W only option set. Those nice people at Epson tell
me that the colour ink is being used each time we power the printer up (at
least a couple of times a day as we use them in a mobile environment) and
there is no way to make the printer work without colour ink! Rather
annoying, if we have to pay for colour ink we don't need / use...

Is there any way we can trick the printer / software into believing there is
colour ink there?

Thanks,
Meryl

 

[safetymom123]

Ink is needed and you risk the chance of burning up the printhead with no
ink. I suggest either buying laser printers for your b&w work or buy
compatible cartridges for the C64.

 

[Meryl]

Thanks for that. But -
I don't really care if the printhead does burn up on the colour side.
Becasue as I said in my original post we only use these printers for black
and white work.
Buying laser printers now won't make the Epsons any more usable - We don't
want to just write them off.
I'm looking for an alternative to buying any sort of ink at all compatible
or otherwise.
regards,
Meryl.

 

[Lukasz Ledochowski]

Is there any way we can trick the printer / software into believing
there is colour ink there?

http://www.ssclg.com/epsone.shtml - thius utility can freeze the level
of ink in the printer so it doesn't know that ink runs out and tries to
print even with empty cartridges. But they have to have some ink when
you freeze the level.

Do you have any other problems with these Epsons at work?

 

[Meryl]

http://www.ssclg.com/epsone.shtml - thius utility can freeze the level
of ink in the printer so it doesn't know that ink runs out and tries to
print even with empty cartridges. But they have to have some ink when
you freeze the level.

Do you have any other problems with these Epsons at work?

Thanks for that £ukasz. That looks as if it is just what we need

We have only been using these printers for a couple of months and they seem
OK in all other respects. We bought them as an upgrade from Panasonic
dot-matrix printers (very reliable, cheap to run, but oh so slow!).

Thanks again,
Meryl.

 

[Arthur Entlich]

Early Epson printers had two cleaning stations, one for the black head,
and one for the color. They still both engaged when the printer was
turned on, however, then when you initiated a cleaning cycle you could
designate which head to clean. The problem with that older system was
it doubled the amount of of mechanics involved in the cleaning parts of
the print, and doubled the heads, etc, all adding to costs, and actually
also making clogs more common.

Epson redesigned the printers with one cleaning station, and one head
which had both the black and color nozzles together. It lowered cost
and parts and actually tends to lower clogging risks, since the one head
has to be sealed on shut off rather than two.

OK, so how to resolve your problem?

You can't stop the printer from taking colored ink out of the cartridges
on start up and cleaning cycles, and even if you could, the printer
would still count the ink as gone, and shut down when it thought the
cartridges were empty.

So, you have a few choices. You can buy yourself a chip resetter,
(there may also be software available that will reset the cartridge
chip) and just put the empty color cartridges back in. However, it's
possible that might lead to some very clogged colored heads. You could
fill the color cartridges with a mixture of transparent window cleaner
(I would suggest non-ammoniated, because exposing the heads to continual
ammonia may not be best for them) window cleaner usually is a mixture of
glycol, water, and a bit of alcohol and with or without ammonia. The
glycol would help keep the heads from drying out or clogging.

Each time they are indicated as "empty" just reset the chips and refill
with the liquid.

Still another option is to fully flush the heads so there is no ink left
in them, and use completely empty ink cartridges. If, at a later time
you need the colored inks, buy new cartridges with fresh ink.

The problem with all chipped cartridge systems is that the printer
assumes they are empty based upon a counter that accumulates the numbers
from cleanings and printing, and has no real idea if there is ink in the
cartridge or not.

In general, I suggest for black only printing to consider laser
printers. They don't cost a great deal more than inkjet printers these
days, usually are faster and cleaner printing, and cost less per copy.

Art

 

[Arthur Entlich]

Where have you acquired the information that the heads will "burn up" on
Epson printers if used without ink in the head?

Epson heads use piezo-electric actuators which produce no measurable
heat when active, unlike thermal heads used in many printers which
actually heat a small resistor to boil the ink to propel it.

Further, assuming the color heads are not being used, and the ink usage
is only due to cleaning cycles, the head is not activated during this
process (again, unlike that of thermal heads). Epson heads use a passive
cleaning method which is just a suction pump applied to the outside of
the nozzles.

I do agree laser printers would have been a better choice for black only
printing, (unless high quality images are required) for many reasons,
unless the person is using vinyl coverings on the prints, which often
reason with the plastics in the laser printer toner.

Art