Epson Cartridge Error Cycle

by Izzy Goodman

This frustrating scenario is known to happen:

You change a cartridge and the printer complains that it can't recognize the next one. You change that and it complains about the third. You change that and it complains about the fourth. By the time it finally works, the ink level shows a lot of wasted ink OR
You change a cartridge and the printer complains about it, so you put in another new cartridge and it is still complaining about it.

There are several features of epson printers which together cause this phenomenon. 1) The ink level is far from exact. It is an estimate based on the number of pages printed. Some pages take more ink and some less. 2) It is dangerous to the printer to operate without ink in any one of the heads. Therefore the printer errs on the side of safety and reports low ink when there is still ink remaining. Since Epson cartridges typically hold 7 ml and ours hold about 15 ml, there may be plenty of ink left when the printer is reporting empty. 3) Epsons often confuse the low ink error with a cartridge not recognized error. 4) When you change a cartridge, the printer runs through a charging process which is very similar to the head cleaning process for ALL the ink cartridges. A lot of ink is wasted. 5) Whenever you turn an Epson printer on, it runs through a cleaning. This is why we recommend always leaving it on. 6) It sometimes gets confused as to which cartridge is the problem, particularly when mixing epson and non epson in the same printer. Before we discovered this, when a customer called to say it wasn't recognizing the black, we sent another black but then it didn't recognize that one either. The customer then bought a genuine Epson and that one wasn't recognized either. The customer then swapped out the other cartridges and the culprit turned out to be a different color. Putting our original cartridge back in worked OR the customer put in an original Epson and with all the cartridges being Epson the printer suddenly reported the correct color as being the problem. After swapping that one out, our cartridge worked just fine OR the customer replaced all the cartridges with ours and everything worked.

Here's what may be happening:

You have a printer with low ink in the black cartridge, a quarter full cyan, a half full red and three quarters full yellow. You change the black cartridge. It runs through its charging process, which uses ALL 4 colors. Now the cyan cartridge is low, so it complains (about either the black or the cyan). You change the cyan. It charges again. Now the magenta cartridge is low. You change that one. It charges again. Now the yellow cartridge is low. You change that one. It charges again. Now everything works except your black is now a quarter empty and the blue shows some use as well.

We have seen this happen with genuine epson cartridges as well - in fact even more often since they only hold 7 ml of ink. I saw someone put in a brand new cyan cartridge, then change the magenta, then the yellow, then print a single 4 x 6 photo and the printer reported the cyan was out of ink.

What can you do to avoid this?

With regular disposable cartridges which are opaque, my only suggestion is to check the ink levels before changing a cartridge. If other colors are low besides the one the printer is complaining about, change those as well.

Our reusable and refillable cartridges give you two advantages over regular cartridges. First, they hold 15 to 20 ml of ink which is roughly two to three times what Epson gives you and about 25% more than our regular cartridges. Second, the refillable cartridges and the back of the reusable ink tanks are transparent. You can see how much ink remains. If it is at least 1/3 full, you can re-insert the same tank or cartridge into the printer. If it is less, you are better off not doing so. When you re-insert it, the chip may get reset to full. The printer might continue printing after all the ink has been used. Printing with an empty cartridge can damage your printer. It is better to lose a dollar's worth of ink than your printer.