Printer with invisable ink

[lurchbourke]

Hey,

thanks for readin this

I have a friend who has a friend........... he has an Epson CZ3650 printer. He had the pritner ink carts refilled in a store a while ago then when he put them into the printer and tried to print a page the page comes out blank. He knows the carts are full but the computer is reading them as low now when thay were reading as full yesterday.

is the printing head at fault?
is it somthing specific to this printer?
should i tell him to stop being a cheap ass and buy new ink carts? (i know this one YES right!)

but is this a problem with refilling or the printer does anyone know or can you reffer me to someone who does

Thanks a million

Bye

 

[Lord Evermore]

Many printers don't really "read" the ink levels at all, they just estimate how much should be left based on what the driver/printer recorded for print jobs and how much ink should have been used for each one. When you replace a cartridge, it just resets the counter, whether you actually put a full cartridge in or just put the old one back in. Others may use a serial number on a chip on the cartridge so that it at least knows that you put back in a cartridge that you already used.

It ought to be printing something if there is usable ink in the cartridge, whether the driver says it's empty or not. I assume that he's tried removing them and putting them back in again. And running the normal printhead cleaning/alignment process in the driver.

Getting cartridges refilled may be hit or miss. Printer manufacturers do the most they can to make it not work properly. Your friend may be running into some issue caused by that.

I found Epson cartridges to be pretty reasonably priced. They don't make cartridges that have the printhead included like other brands, so they're cheaper to make. You can also get 3rd party cartridges for good prices that ought to work just as well. The only time I've bothered I bought them from carrotink.com, but I have no idea if they're still running or have that model.

 

[jackschmittusa]

Any tape on the bottom of the carts?

 

[bruceb]

Did he try running a Head Cleaning from the Printer Maintenance Menu (same menu that says what ink levels are)
If that doesn't do it, check bottom of Cartridge and Contacts for Tape and remove it
Also try Soaking the Bottom of the Cartridge in Warm Water 1/2 depth to unclog the jets

 

[Lord Evermore]

Unless they changed recently or for this particular machine, Epson printers do not have the ink jets on the cartridge, they're part of the carriage in the printer, and the cartridges are truly nothing but tanks. Sticking the cartridge into the printer sticks a nozzle through a seal on the cartridge, leading to the printhead (the seal of course is destroyed in the process). Soaking them in water would be likely to let water just soak right up into the tank.

There may have been tape put onto the cartridge after refilling to prevent leakage or contamination, one assumes people check for things like that but when computer assemblers leave plastic on top of CPU thermal compound, I guess one shouldn't assume.

 

[bruceb]

That could be correct & if so I stand corrected.
I was going by prior experience with other makes
of Inkjet cartridges, where the printhead is integral
to the cartridge

 

[daniel49]

printer head is probably plugged up.
if its cartridge type replace cartridge as printer head is on cartridge.
If its tank type, you have to buy a new printer head from Manufacturer for probably 50.00. + or -
If its the latter just replace the printer. As 50.00 would buy a printer these days.