Misbehaving Yellow Cartridge for 7900

Backstory: In order to move my 7900 down a set of stairs, Epson recommends draining the ink and running their cleaning cartridges. These two sets of 11 cartridges costs over $2000. The fee for a tech fro come out and perform this task could run $500-600. $2600 service for a $3000 printer - crazy.

So I purchased set of empty cartridges to run the drain program myself. All good except the yellow cartridge would not be recognized.I tried resetting the chip, shimming top and sides per forum comments but no go. Plus, neither the drain nor the initial fill programs would run - so that I could drain the ink. Since I had left this until the last minute I wound up running several cleaning cycles with the 10 working empty cartridges installed and the stock yellow cartridge, which was about a quarter full. When the yellow cartridge was empty, and the other cartridges showed about a quarter down I was able to move the printer. For this I built a cardboard brace for the printer head and because the printer had to be stood on end to move it, moved it head side up since I figured ink might drain out if it were head side down.

The printer arrived at the bottom of the stairs without an apparent leak. It will be a couple of weeks before the printer reaches its final destination and I can fully test it but so far so good.

However I would still like to get a working yellow cartridge from Inkjet Mall, either a replacement or a new chip - as this seemed to work for another user.

I suggest keeping set of empty cartridges around for moving purposes.

Hi Anthony~

Thanks for your detailed explanation. Geeze- it’s outrageous what Epson wants you to spend on a set of drain and ink carts to move your printer!!

The shimming trick we suggest is to add a wedge of paper on the bottom of the cartridge, to push the chip and chip sensor together for a better connection. If the chip and sensor don’t have a tight connection, the printer can display a cartridge error. I have sent you a replacement yellow chip, in case it’s the chip and not the physical fit of the cart that’s causing your error. The chip may come on a plastic base, to attach to your refillable cartridge, you will want to carefully remove the chip from the plastic base, then attach the chip to the refill cart using double sided tape- making sure it’s flat/flush on the cartridge before installing.

Please let me know how things go, if you have questions, or there’s anything else I can help you with.
Best regards~ Dana :slight_smile: