Battery vs batteryless chips

[LarryB]

As you may remember from a couple of months ago, one of my ink levels in the battery style chips reset when I removed the cart to give it a shake. I didn’t notice that it had reset, so it read full when it was only half full, causing my cart to run empty and introduced air into the lines.

This has led to a question that’s been looming for awhile for me.

Am I better off switching to the batteryless style chips? If so,

If I choose to refill all carts even if the empty ink notification hasn’t been triggered, I’m in no danger of running a cart dry because the notification will come on when the cart is partially empty. However, my ink levels will read lower than what’s actually in the cart, so the levels won’t be accurate.

Is this correct?

The reason I ask this question is that I’m considering getting a set of the battery-less chips so they don’t reset on me like they did before. I need to have a system that won’t mislead me into thinking my carts are full when, in fact, they’re almost empty.
Larry

[KellyC]

Hi Larry,

This is all a matter of preference, as you well know if you refill your cartridges with NON-Battery style chips and re-insert them into the printer BEFORE they read empty, they will continue to read as they were before you removed them. There is no way to manually reset them. Meaning your ink levels will never be accurate in this situation. However if you wait for the chips to read empty, the cartridge will still have at least 10mls of ink remaining to make sure they don’t drain and introduce air into your lines.

As for the Battery Style chips, they do have the option of manually resetting. This is good for some people and not for others. It is up to you to decide really, which ever suits your fancy. As you also found out, if you remove and reinstall one of these carts it may auto reset back to full, so if you have to take a cart out for whatever reason, it’s always a good idea to refill it to full and reset it manually.

[LarryB]

Thanks Kelly,

If those battery style chips weren’t so temperamental, I’d love them. But if I don’t use the printer much in a two week period and just want to give the carts a shake, it’s not worth it to refill a nearly full cart. I’ll think about new chips, but I’ll have to save up for them. (Our Canadian dollar makes them really pricey)

Larry