Just installed a replacement set of your carts full of inks for my ageing ones. The order number was: SO30745900
When doing a nozzle check I get 8 bands printing out: 5 colour and 3 grey/black. I’m assuming all 9 cartridges should be printing test bands, unlike actual printing when one of the black cartridges will not be used.
If all 9 should show, then my new MK matte black cart is not producing any bands at all despite several cleaning cycles and having been taken out and put back in a couple of times.
Unfortunately, I think I might have been guilty of the major sin of letting the old cart sit relatively low on ink for a few weeks prior to the carts being changed. So I’m left with the problem of deciding if I have a faulty cart or a blocked ink channel.
Any suggestions as to the best way to proceed? If it helps, I’ve ordered a spare set of carts and some Piezo flush to use when the printer is idle for weeks on end.
Printer models with two black channels, such as the R3000, will only print one black at a time, depending on which black ink mode the printer is in. This is true with regular printing, as well as nozzle checks. The R3000 has 9 cartridges, but 8 print head channels (the two blacks share a channel), so a good nozzle check should have 8 ink positions.
I’m puzzled because two different people at Epson assured me that with the nozzle check all nine cartridges should print a test band because there are 9 nozzles.
What you said did occur to me but I just couldn’t remember if I’d seen 8 or 9 sets of nozzle lines the last time I did it some weeks back. Surprisingly, the manual makes no reference to this.
Finally got a different Epson guy to do a nozzle check on their R3000 there and then, and only 8 bands. Told him about the misinformation and sent a complaint as this could have fooled any owner into getting the printer serviced at huge cost when there was nothing wrong! Maybe Epson USA is better for higher servicing volumes and greater experience?
Should probably clean my machine now after all those needless cleaning cycles. When do you usually suggest doing a thorough internal clean?
I’ve just done my first cleaning (capping station, print head) and re filled my new carts (without the reset points), but the displayed ink levels on all the carts don’t seem to have changed from pre-refill levels. I’ve tried unplugging the R3000 for a long time, but nothing’s changed.
The instructions say that the carts automatically reset “when the cartridge reads empty in the printer”. That suggests the reset won’t happen until that point.
Postscript: I’ve just seen an article about this in relation to users refilling carts before they need re-filling. I thought I was doing myself a favor by not relying on the Epson ink level displays which, if inaccurate, could leave me with dry carts and printing problems.
I expect I’ll be able to get back in sync with the Epson ink level display when it eventually ‘thinks’ the carts should be empty and if I re-fill then. Correct?
Does waiting for the Epson empty message before re-filling run the risk of letting the ink levels get too low?
Correct, the new non-battery style R300 chips will ONLY reset to read full again when the printer reads the carts/chips as empty, carts are removed, refilled, and reinserted. Upon reinsertion, the cartridge chip will reset to read full again in the printer. Only cartridges that read empty will be reset.
My personal workflow is to visually check cartridge ink levels at the beginning of each week, and refill/reset any that are low, so I can confidently print without risking running carts dry. Generally, the ink level readings are accurate, as long as carts are totally refilled when chips are reset, though occasionally the battery chips have been known to automatically reset themselves somehow, possibly due to older chip batteries (?).
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