Matte Black Cart Not Recognized

InkjetMall Customer Support Printer Maintenance & Cartridges
1

Hello,

I recently switched from a 9800 to a 9880 printer. The 9880 printer was sold by a career Epson technician and came with a new print head and capping station installed and tested. The printer came with a set of refillable cartridges.

The problem I am experiencing is that the printer will not recognize the matte black position with new Cone chips installed on Cone cartridges I bought recently to use in my 9800. When the matte black position was not recognized, I had Wells send a second matte black chip, which was also not recognized.

Here is what I have done trying to set up the 9880 with the Cone cartridges and chips:

  1. Using the refillable cartridges that came with the printer (the set has a matte Black cartridge), I fill them with flushing fluid and did an initial fill. The 9880 recognized all the carts and completed the initial fill.

  2. I replace all the 9800 chips on my Cone carts with the new 9880 chips from Cone and installed the carts in the 9880. All were recognized exept for the matte black cart.

  3. Thinking the printer was maybe set up for Photo Black, I did a BLK Ink change with the the matte black cart that came with printer and Cone carts in all the other positions. The 9880 completed the BLK Ink Change successfully.

  4. The printer still did not recognize the Cone matte black cart with either matte black chip Wells had sent. With each Cone chip I got the error message: Ink Cartridge Error. Please Install Correct Cartridge.

  5. I put the K7 matte black ink in the matte black cart that came with the printer, installed the cart, and tried to do an initial fill. I got a printer error that said Replace Cartridge, but no position showed on the 9880 menu. I tried to reset the chip on the matte black cart that came with the printer, and it would not reset. I tried with two different chip resetters.

  6. Thinking perhaps the Cone matte black cart wasn’t seating properly in the 9880, I tried the Cone matte black chip on the cart that came with the printer. Again, the 9880 did not recognized the matte black cart. The Cone matte black cart did work properly in my 9800 (with the 9800 chip installed).

  7. I took the chip off an OEM Epson matte black cart and installed it on the cart with the matte black K7 ink. The printer then recognized the cart and allowed me to do an initial fill.

The printer is now printing properly, but as soon as the matte black cart with the OEM Epson chip is low, I will have the same problem again.

What do you suggest I do?

A couple of Questions:

1.) How can you tell whether the printer is set up for matte black or photo black other than looking at the cartridge in the Black position?

2.) If the 9880 was set up for Photo Black and I installed a matte black cart, would I get the message, Ink Cartridge Error. Please Install Correct Cartridge?

Thanks,

Drew Harty

2

Hi Drew~

If you’re using Piezography ink in this 9880 printer, it doesn’t matter if the printer is in MK or PK mode.
What you experienced is caused by the 7880/9880 cartridge chips being programmed with all color position information (so the chips aren’t color position specific, and can work in any slot). This works great, but for some reason the PK info is stronger than MK, so if the printer is in PK mode, there’s no problem, but occasionally when a printer is in MK mode, the printer gets confused when reading the chip. If the printer was in PK mode, and you installed the “MK” cart (with refill chip attached), the printer would have no problem accepting the cartridge, even though the cartridge label says MK, the printer reads the PK info on the chip, and is satisfied.
To check the black ink mode, you can select black ink change, and I believe it’ll list the black you’re currently on (just back out at this point, and don’t continue).

The solution to this is to use an Epson MK chip, and reset it when the ink level gets low (yes, our chip resetter will reset an Epson 7880/9880 chip)- or do a black ink change to get the printer in PK mode, then it’ll accept the “MK” cartridge with refill chip attached.

We have several 7880/9880 printers in our studio, and use them as our main Piezography printers (they’re workhorses!), they’re all in PK mode and use our refillable carts with various Piezography ink tones.

I am working on updating the cartridge instructions, and will add a note explaining this MK/PK chip situation.

I hope this helps.
Please let me know if you have further questions or there’s anything else I can help you with.
Best regards and happy printing~ Dana :slight_smile: