Wednesday, September 06, 2006

HOW I SAVE A BUNDLE OF CASH REFILLING EPSON PRINTER CARTRIDGES

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I like Epson printers. In general they are dependable and provide good quality print.

I don't like Epson's ink level system. The cartridges have a tiny chip in them that estimates the amount of ink you use. Even if the cartridge is half full your printer will refuse to print if the cartridge decides it's empty.
I finaly decided to do something about this when a Epson printer I used for black printing only still refused to print even with a a new black cartridge. because it decided my color cartridge was empty. ( By the way I had to take a twenty mile round trip to pick up a new cartridge.) Made another trip picked up color cartridges it still didn't print worth a darn.I threw the damn thing in the trash and swore I would never buy another Epson.
Like many people I have collected a few printers because the price of a new printer on sale was the same as the cost of a replacement ink cartridge. I had another Epson that had clogged printer heads it went in the trash. Out went a old Canon. Out went a practicaly new Lexmark that had never worked right from the beginning. I even had an old thermal printer gathering dust.
I had read somewhere that some of the Epson inks were pigmented and some not. So I reasoned that an older Epson might have the non-pigmented ink thus not clog. I kept the old Epson C60 because it was an older printer. Unfortunately I still had the dreaded chip to deal with.
I did a little research and found an outfit called: FILLJET.COM that sold a little device that resets the chip in your Epson cartridge and lets you use it after it's refilled. I bought one for about ten bucks and a bottle of cheap ink and I've been using the old C60 ever since then. I just refill the cartridge, reset it and I'm ready to go. I estimate that I have refilled this cartridge about ten times for a total cost of 15 to 20 bucks for and it's still going strong.

In theory the following Epson cartidges can be reset and filled:
Epson Stylus color: C32, C42, C42Plus, C42S, C42SX, C42UX, C44, C41, C43, C43UX, C46, C50, C60, C61, C62, CX3200, 680, 685, 777, 777i, 780, 785EPX, 790, 795, C70, C70Plus, C80, C80N, C80WN, C90, C90Plus.
Epson Photo: 915, 925, 935, 810, 830, 830U, 870, 870LE, 875DC, 890, 900, 1270, 1280, 1290, 1290S, 2000P, 950, 960, 2100, 2200

For what it's worth I tried to check out the Fill-Jet site and it doesnot seem to be up and running. I did find another company that sells the resetter. The URL is: http://www.inkjetsaver.com/ I've never done business with them so use at your own risk.

No matter what kind of ink jet printer you use I strongly recomend printing something using all the colors at least once a month to avoid the dreaded clogged print head problem. The Epsons with a high DPI rating and Durabrite inks seem to be especially prone to clogging.

In general Epson printers do a good high quality print job but Epson charges a mint for cartridges that you can only empty part way, sells Durabrite filled cartridges that clog and the printers refuse to print even though you may have plenty of the ink you need for the print job you are doing.

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