ink cartridge refills

[Robert L Krawitz]

   From: "dan moylan" <jdm34 at cornell.edu>
   Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2002 21:50:53 UT

   not truly a linux topic, but related to a non windows OS (i think).

I'm actually an expert (at least in general) on Epson printers, and
the project lead for Gimp-print.

   i have an epson 777 printer which cost about $80, including both
   the color and black cartridges, which seem to retail for about $30
   each.  common sense would tell me i got a reasonable deal on the
   printer and am getting screwed on the replacement cartridges.  i
   have replaced both cartridges several times with no apparent
   problem except annoyance at the price.

I'm not sure offhand if the 777 uses a chipped cartridge.  If it does,
simply refilling the cartridge won't work.

   however, at a recent kgp show i bought both a non epson
   replacement cartridge and some inks for refills.  carefully
   following the directions (obviously written by an ESL person)
   for refilling the black cartridge (an epson which had just
   run out) looked ok at first.  i got one page printed just
   fine, and then the blinking red light.  turning the printer
   off and back on produced lots of noise and action.  the
   paper fed, a half line of gibberish on each sheet, and on
   and on . . .

Turning the printer on and off in the middle of a job won't work.  The
data stream will be interrupted, and when you turn the printer back
on, the printer won't understand what's coming out, and will treat it
as text, with the results you've seen.

   i then tried the replacement non-epson cartridge with exactly the
   same results.  i did notice in the instructions with the cartridge,
   some notes on what to do for certain error messages (non oem
   cartridge, etc).  the linux driver seems not to support printer
   auxilliary functions, such as cleaning the print head, buttons for
   ok'ing non oem cartridges, etc.

Which driver are you using?  Gimp-print supports print head cleaning
(which you can do with a button on the printer, anyway), and head
alignment.

-- 
Robert Krawitz <rlk at alum.mit.edu>      http://www.tiac.net/users/rlk/

Tall Clubs International  --  http://www.tall.org/ or 1-888-IM-TALL-2
Member of the League for Programming Freedom -- mail lpf at uunet.uu.net
Project lead for Gimp Print/stp --  http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net

"Linux doesn't dictate how I work, I dictate how Linux works."
--Eric Crampton