[YLUG] Epson print cartridges

[Gaffer]

On Wednesday 04 October 2006 03:57, David Harker Inscribed Thus:
> Roger Leigh wrote:
> > David Harker <david.harker at oneiria.co.uk> writes:
> >> I look after the PC of a member of my family for her and had to
> >> resort to google when all 3 of the colour ink cartridges in her
> >> epson decided simultaneously that they had run out despite barely
> >> any use. To cut a long story short I'm now the proud owner of a
> >> little gadget to reset the "ink level" (read: "death clock") chips
> >> in them. I don't have an epson and have no idea if it works yet
> >> but if anyone else does and has experienced a similar problem then
> >> I'd be happy to bring it along one evening and zap you. Would be
> >> interesting to see how much more ink you can get out of those
> >> things.
> >
> > The chip should store the amount of ink used; IIRC it actually
> > counts the volume of droplets fired, which is in the picolitre
> > range.  Unless there is a fault, it should deliberately leave some
> > ink in the cartridge (though not much).  This is in order to
> > prevent air and dirt being drawn into the printhead, which would
> > happen if you drained it completely.  The nozzles in the head are
> > very fine precision piezoelectric crystals, and dirt will clog them
> > (potentially irreversibly).
> >
> > If the chip is definitely wrong, it might be safer to return the
> > cartridge for a replacement.  If you reset the chip when the
> > cartridge is half-full, for example, you do risk ruining the
> > printer when it gets fully drained.
> >
> > If you aren't using it already, the "escputil" tool does the ink
> > level checking for Epson printers on Linux.
> >
> >
> > Regards,
> > Roger
>
> Well if that is the case (sounds reasonable to me) then why have all
> three cartridges simultaneously died while very nearly full? Smells
> more than a bit fishy to me! They aren't "half-full", they're about
> 90% full *minimum*. Really not used at all past a bit of testing and
> a couple of copies. There is absolutely no way that they're even
> *close* to running out. I'm still crying foul play by Epson.
>
> David

One way to check and make sure is to weigh them when new and again when 
empty !  You might be surprised !

-- 
Best Regards:
     Derrick.