Sure color P600 can't change to photo black, says cart ink too low

InkjetMall Customer Support Printer Maintenance & Cartridges
,
1

the line to the cart was empty for 2’’ leading to the cart, so I re inserted the syringe and drew ink into the syringe from the top and the bottom of the cart…still not allowing me to go to photo black

2

I am having the same issue this morning with my P600. Is it the full moon?

3

This warning is in the included instructions (in two places).

Place your OEM PK and MK cartridge back in and then switch inks. You should not switch to MK when the PK is super low. Otherwise it can’t switch back as it takes a lot of PK to switch from MK to PK (less from PK to MK).

best,
Walker

4

[QUOTE=walkerblackwell;11862]This warning is in the included instructions (in two places).

Place your OEM PK and MK cartridge back in and then switch inks. You should not switch to MK when the PK is super low. Otherwise it can’t switch back as it takes a lot of PK to switch from MK to PK (less from PK to MK).

best,
Walker[/QUOTE]

Walker,

thank you for the reply.

I do not have my original P600 cartridges. Is there any other way to correct the error message?

Thank you.

Larry

5

No. You will need an OEM cartridge to do the switch or a new chip from us. We are back-ordered on replacement chips at the moment as we are upgrading to v3 chips and a waiting shipment of them. I suggest getting a PK cartridge and keeping it aside as a backup in case this every happens.

It’s good practice to ALWAYS keep a set of OEMs (even just the starters) carts around.

best,
Walker

6

Thank you for the reply.

It would have been nice to have that information in the CISS instructions. I had had a CISS system for my 2400 and never had this issue.

Have a good day.

Larry

7

Still having this problem…got a reply from Jon Cone saying Hi Rick,

You may need to apply for technical support for your problem.
Your printer requires wasting a lot of ink in all of the positions in order to switch ink modes.
It has detected a chip (not a cartridge) that is reading low in one position or more.
You would be able to see which one by using the Epson Status Monitor or looking on your LCD panel.
The chip is not connected to the actual ink supply by wires or any other mechanism.
So you should not look at the ink remaining in the cartridge as that is irrelevant to how Epson keeps track of remaining ink.
Chips are only reset to 100% and the printer counts what percentage of the full cartridge has been printed and what is remaining by its calculation algorithm. It would do this regardless of whether there was ink actually in the cartridge or not. It only responds to the chip.

So the amount of ink in the cart is not the problem - the % remaining in the chip is.
And your low ink may not be in the black position - which is why I want you to determine which cart or carts are low by using the Epson Status Monitor or LCD Panel.

You can replace one cartridge - but I hope that you fully understand your problem.
You can purchase individual cartridges here: http://shop.inkjetmall.com/Refillable-Cartridges/
If you need technical support instructions for that are here: http://shop.inkjetmall.com/About/Free-Technical-Support/
Your customer ID is C20468
So I went on inkjetmall to replace one cart [ photo black ] but can’t see how to do that. I think when I went to replace the cartridge, I forgot to pull the black plastic pin, so probably corrupted the cart. any input would be appreciated, thanks, Rick stockwell

8

Hi Rick~

You are using a CIS in your P600, so no- you can’t just replace a cart. Have you attempted to do a cleaning cycle or nozzle check since you went to replace the cartridge and forgot to pull the black plastic pin first? If not, please do and let me know your results.

~Dana

9

I did a cleaning cycle and no help, then I pulled more ink into the cart as I noticed the tube going to the cart was 2" empty [ which happens a lot] and still couldn’t switch to photo bl…if I did damage the bottom hole on the cart by not using the tip, could that have made a too large hole, thus not holding enough suction to keep the filler tube full of ink ?

10

This is actually a normal thing (a few inches of air in the ink line). There is a small amount of air at the very top of the cartridge (it’s impossible to prime 100% of the air out during the installation phase) that will occasionally go backwards towards the CISS tanks if the CISS tanks move a bit or change in elevation (or pressure). There is a very complicated set of locking tubes and vents inside of the cartridge itself that ensures that the small amount of air at the top of the cartridge never makes it to the bottom where the ink outlet is. It does not effect printing at all.

best,
Walker

11

thanks, but I was working on my problem above on my previous comments where I can’t get my photo black to operate, it says not enough ink to change carts. Dana suggested I do a cleaning cycle, but that didn’t fix it.

12

You will (sadly) need to purchase a Photo Black OEM ink cartridge (just one!). To be able to switch back to PK. In the future, always print until the PK cart switches back to full before putting the printer into MK. This is the one danger of ARC chips in combination with MK/PK switching printers (Epson forces people to simply buy a new cart at this point). We do not currently have spare PK CHIPS available as a cheaper option.

See note in red here (and in the instructions that came w/ the CISS): http://shop.inkjetmall.com/CISS-for-Epson-P600.html

all the best,
Walker

13

ok, thanks, I’ll try that and let you know