Keys for 1400

I bought a quantity of Inkthrift Claria CL ink and also a set of prefilled capsules for my 1400. Have been using the prefilled capsules over past month or so , excellent results, really impressed with the ink quality. Now hitting a problem with refilling. I had assumed that when the easy fill keys were taken out and put back in after topping up with ink that they would automatically rest to full. Wrong assumption. Epson print monitor showed the same status as before I had topped up all the carts. Since my Light cyan looked as though it was about 80% used, I decided to print out a number of copies of a photo containing lots of sky and watched how the print monitor status changed. Well, no out of ink warning light every came on, at one stage it informed me that there might not be enough ink to print another one copy of the photo so I deliberately asked it to print 3 copies, expecting out of ink warning to appear. No, what happened, 3 copies printed ok and the Epson print monitor now showed the Cyan cart to be full.!! Never had any red light for low ink warning. The question here is can a chip resetter be used with these easy fill keys or am I going to have to resort to writing down how many prints I have run off and fill all carts when say I reach a print run of say 40 A4 sheets? Looking forward to getting some advice from the experts here.
Thanks
John Archer
Edinburgh Scotland

None of these chips are “smart” at reading actual ink levels. They estimate the level based on use. ARC chips are supposed to auto-reset once the following conditions are completed in order: Printer says “replace ink”, the cartridge is removed, the cartridge is replaced.

Now, a thing I’m uncertain of is whether it is the act of essentially power-cycling the ARC (by removing and re-inserting) that resets it after it has been written to as empty, or if the printer queries the chip differently after an empty is removed that triggers the reset. Either way, your situation is strange, and probably a random fluke. (I had an OEM maintenance cartridge reset to full after replacing an ink cartridge one time…now why did THAT happen???)

But, all this can be easily worked around using a chip resetter. As far as I’m aware, the small format resetter that IJM sells should work on all small format carts, which includes the keys. At only $20, it’s well worth it.

Now on that note, can we please get refill keys for the R2880? :slight_smile:

The Keys for the capsules should read ink levels until empty, at which point you replace the capsule OR refill the capsule, then re-insert and it should reset the chip. I would guess that when you took the cartridges out of the printer, they were not reading empty yet, instead they were still showing a 20% remaining ink level, at which point you refilled and put back in the printer. The chips did not reset, because they didn’t ready “empty” or “replace ink”, so the printer went about it’s business until it thought the carts were in fact, empty. This is all based on estimated usage, how big a print and how much of what color ink is being used, the chips don’t actually read ink level 100% accurately.

To avoid this problem, the chip resetter does work on these keys and that will make it so you can remove, refill and reset to full whenever you please.

As far as a Key for the R2880, we are very pleased with our current refillable cartridge solution for this printer model, along with the CCPRO ink that supports it, no keys in the near future for the R2880.

An update, printed a few more photos today and, now yellow magenta and cyan carts are showing as full- these had been steadily dropping down over last few days and I have not added any ink to these carts, but the interesting thing here is that my Epson 1400 has not once flashed it’s red low ink level warning, all that is happening is that the status monitor display resets to full obviously when the carts are judged to be empty. Definitely getting a chip resetter now for these carts.

Do they get “almost empty” and then reset? If so, then the “have to remove” feature has failed or was badly implemented chip-side. If they reset randomly, that might just be their feature (like the 3880 carts). Strange.

One question, do you turn your printer off every day / after a job? If so, leaving it on might fix the issue.

Yes they go down to almost empty, don’t trigger the red light coming on then when you try to print another print , the printer goes through it’s initialisation routine, prints ok, check status monitor and the cart has now gone to full. I am simply writing down how many prints I am running off and will top up carts once I reckon they are at least half empty. the chip resetter when it arrives will keep me happy. The printer is never turned off by the way.