No ink out lights but all carts ran dry

[caryncbreeef]

I have an epson photo 1400, this was my first experience with non epson ink. I purchased the kit and installed it and had very little trouble, the print quality is been very good until yesterday when a bunch of photographs failed. I didn’t claim head and print test procedure but things just got worse. since there were no ink out lights on I didn’t even think I would be empty. anyway all the cartridges are empty. now looking back at the instructions at the refilling and resetting ink levels seem to get mixed messages it saying do not allow cartridges to run dry but it also says it levels only reset when anchor light appears that seems to be telling two different things. clearly think out lights don’t work with these cartridges/ chips. or I’d have all the ink like that yet I have none. hopefully less than 24 hours with cartridges low or empty won’t destroy them I guess after I fill them will see if that’s the case thinking to find another company to work with. if there were such a chance that I would get no messages, that I need to open up and take at my cartridges to see if the empty a regular basis then there’s something wrong with the product. any suggestions I’d love to hear

[DanaC]

Hi Cary~

Since we have been working together today via email off the forum, I will just copy and paste our communications for people reading this thread. Please feel free to respond to me on our ongoing email thread, or this forum post.

Best~ Dana

1) My initial email in response to your email:
"I received your message from Cathy in our sales department. We now handle technical/product support via our online support forum, so please use our support forum in the future to search for the answer to your problem, or ask a new question, and we will help you there. I will respond to this question via email now, but appreciate if you could please utilize our support forum in the future.

After reviewing your order history, I see you purchased a set of refillable carts and ConeColor inks for an Epson 1400 in the beginning of October.
Have any carts been removed and reinstalled at any point after initially being installed, before today?
Is this the first time carts have been refilled?
What are the cartridge ink level readings in the status monitor?

Auto reset chips on the 1400 refill carts are programmed to reset ink levels to full when a cart reads low or empty, the cart is removed from the printer, refilled with ink, and reinstalled. If a cart is removed and reinserted without refilling with ink, and the chip was reading low in the printer, the chip may be reset to full, even though the cart didn’t read “empty”- but in my experience, the ink light flashes a few times to signal a cart is low, before the light is on steady to indicate a cart is empty and needs to be replaced.

Please let me know so I can help you get back to happily printing.
Best regards~ Dana"

2) your response:
“thanks for getting back to me. we refilled carts and did a few cleanings and test prints So far text printed fine although on the nozzle check print even the third one was in 100%. I tried to look up supply levels in my system preferences and there is no information available. when I used Epson carts I didn’t have a problem with this or with the lowly light but so far as I stated before these carts don’t cause the light to react and don’t send any information to the supply info. I printed a color image but it doesn’t look good. really washed out, and bands of yellow/green through the image. never had this problem the first time around. what can I do?”

3) my second email:
"Thanks for the additional information.

I don’t understand your statement about the nozzle check “So far text printed fine although on the nozzle check print even the third one was in 100%”. You will need to make sure all 6 channels are fully printing on the nozzle check before printing images. If all 6 channels aren’t fully printing, this could cause strange color, density and banding in the print output. Also, what profiles are you using with ConeColor inks in your 1400?
Did you make sure to tap the carts a few times exit valve down on a folded paper towel to force air up and ink down, before reinstalling the carts into your printer?
Are you using Mac or Windows? What operating system version?”

4) your second response:
"okay yes I did numerous (6 nozzle check prints and cleanings) but still have 6 or 7 spots not printing. this is only after less than 24 hours on empty. I have no idea what profiles I am using because I am only printing on regular paper, and could not get understand or get answers to how to download a profile. there were no profiles that matched the paper we are using and I asked numerous times what to do but got no response So after a not getting any responses and not understanding what was on your website I tried to print and it worked I’ve done it a time of printing since and have had no problems with whatever profile was originally there. I’ve read on the website and I not sure still out to take one of those profiles and where to even put it.

anyways if it worked yesterday morning not sure why should work now.

I am using a Mac OSx 10.9.5

yes we The carts a few times on the exit valve on a folded paper tell to forced air up then we let them sit at least 20 minutes before we did a test nozzle print. and I had a go to a doctor’s appointment so they sat for another two or three hours.

I have now done seven cleanings and nozzle tests, just doing my eighth and ninth still missing spots in light cyan.

finally got ink levels to show and they are way off - unless doing these tests used half a cart of ink. all of them are really low

what can I do now?

tried two prints after 9th nozzle check and no luck. what are my options?"

5) my last email:
"Who did you contact to ask about profiles, and you didn’t get a response from? I will check to see why you didn’t receive a response to your earlier questions about profiles for your setup.
We have several pre-made ICC Color profiles for the Epson 1400 with our ConeColor inks, which can be download from the Cone Color website, here: http://conecolor.com/icc/index.html
You can also find instructions for printing with a color profile on that page, which includes instructions for installing and using profiles.
We don’t make profiles for plain typing paper, so you may have just been using the standard Epson profile. You will not get accurate color with Cone Color inks and your 1400 printer unless you’re using profiles specific to your printer model, ink and paper, as ConeColor inks were made specifically for the Epson UltraChrome K3 printer models, and the 1400 is a Claria model printer, so you can not use ConeColor ink with Epson profiles with the 1400 printer and expect to get good output. This is explained on the 1400 ConeColor product pages, along with a link to where you can download profiles.
If you mainly print on plain paper, and occasionally print images,then you may be better suited with our InkThrift CL inks for the 1400, which you can find and read more about here: http://shopping.netsuite.com/s.nl/c.362672/sc.29/category.87728/it.C/.f

If carts ran dry (which you say they did, without being notified by the printer), this would explain why you’re not getting good ink flow, nozzle checks and print output today. If the status monitor indicates the carts are about 1/2 full, then I suspect carts were removed before they read low or empty, but the ink level reading was low enough that the chips reset. This would make sense if carts have ever been removed + reinserted, or refilled before the printer indicated they’re empty.

Excessive cleaning cycles without improvement in the nozzle check is wasteful and doesn’t help. If you don’t have significant improvement in your nozzle check after 1-3 regular clueing cycles, then I recommend waiting about 30-60 minutes and checking it again, then if still not perfect, clean your printer’s capping station, wiper blade and bottom of the print head, following our instructions, here: http://www.inkjetmall.com/tech/content.php?133-Printer-Cleaning-and-Preventative-Maintenance

Since your physical ink level differs from the status monitor reading, you can manually reset the chips then top off carts so the carts are full, and chips read full. We have chip resetters that work with the 1400 carts, here: http://shopping.netsuite.com/s.nl/c.362672/it.A/id.5752/.f?sc=11&category=27717

Best regards~ Dana"