Epson "ink is low" ripoff

Just a heads up, I'm never going to use/buy another epson printer after this
experience.

Bought a C84 for doing only B&W text printing. Seemed to have a big enough
black cart and 3 colors instead of just one color so I wouldn't have to
replace all the colors when one ran out if ever. I've always used canon
printers in the past and these types of things were good to have. I am
using linux and had the printer set on "draft" mode to conserve ink. WRONG.

Epson doesn't measure the ink levels, the "estimate" how much ink is left
by how many pages are printed and shuts down the printer after this many
pages no matter how much ink is left. First the black "ran out" so I bought
a high capacity cart thinking this would help (extra $ and probably no more
ink they just "let" you print more pages with that one!) Now it won't print
because the color well are all "out of ink" and they are still totally full
as I've never printed any color pages! I can shake the wells and they are
just as full as new ones yet the printer won't work and this isn't a
software thing, it's in the printer itself. Why have separate carts for
color if the printer is going to claim they are all out at once? As soon as
this ink "runs out", this POS is going into the trash. They should be
ashamed of themselves for stealing money from people this way.

Anyway hope this helps someone from making the same mistake I did. I have
seen the "hacks" but they look like way to much work to save a $50
printer..
--

Stacey

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On a sunny day (Thu, 24 Jun 2004 12:06:05 -0400) it happened Stacey
wrote in :

Just a heads up, I'm never going to use/buy another epson printer after this
experience.

Bought a C84 for doing only B&W text printing. Seemed to have a big enough
black cart and 3 colors instead of just one color so I wouldn't have to
replace all the colors when one ran out if ever. I've always used canon
printers in the past and these types of things were good to have. I am
using linux and had the printer set on "draft" mode to conserve ink. WRONG.

Epson doesn't measure the ink levels, the "estimate" how much ink is left
by how many pages are printed and shuts down the printer after this many
pages no matter how much ink is left. First the black "ran out" so I bought
a high capacity cart thinking this would help (extra $ and probably no more
ink they just "let" you print more pages with that one!) Now it won't print
because the color well are all "out of ink" and they are still totally full
as I've never printed any color pages! I can shake the wells and they are
just as full as new ones yet the printer won't work and this isn't a
software thing, it's in the printer itself. Why have separate carts for
color if the printer is going to claim they are all out at once? As soon as
this ink "runs out", this POS is going into the trash. They should be
ashamed of themselves for stealing money from people this way.

Anyway hope this helps someone from making the same mistake I did. I have
seen the "hacks" but they look like way to much work to save a $50
printer..
I have an Epson Color 460.
The trick is, if it says no more ink, take out ink cartrigde, and put it back in.
Then it thinks it is full again.
Later versions (then mine) had a chip to prevent you from doing this.
I have heard about work arounds, maybe google a bit.
The Epson is pretty good most of the time, I can for example make PCB layout with it.
I do no tuse original Epson ink, as it showed not to be waterporrof, but ink from www.inkclub.com.
That seems to be better waterproof.
Does this help?
Dunno.
Perhaps

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On Thu, 24 Jun 2004 12:06:05 -0400, Stacey wrote:

Just a heads up, I'm never going to use/buy another epson printer after this
experience.

Bought a C84 for doing only B&W text printing. Seemed to have a big enough
black cart and 3 colors instead of just one color so I wouldn't have to
replace all the colors when one ran out if ever. I've always used canon
printers in the past and these types of things were good to have. I am
using linux and had the printer set on "draft" mode to conserve ink. WRONG.

Epson doesn't measure the ink levels, the "estimate" how much ink is left
by how many pages are printed and shuts down the printer after this many
pages no matter how much ink is left. First the black "ran out" so I bought
a high capacity cart thinking this would help (extra $ and probably no more
ink they just "let" you print more pages with that one!) Now it won't print
because the color well are all "out of ink" and they are still totally full
as I've never printed any color pages! I can shake the wells and they are
just as full as new ones yet the printer won't work and this isn't a
software thing, it's in the printer itself. Why have separate carts for
color if the printer is going to claim they are all out at once? As soon as
this ink "runs out", this POS is going into the trash. They should be
ashamed of themselves for stealing money from people this way.

Anyway hope this helps someone from making the same mistake I did. I have
seen the "hacks" but they look like way to much work to save a $50
printer..


Hi,
I have an Epson Stylus Photo printer but I got round the ink rip-off by
buying a liitle device called ZAP-IT on eBay. Cost about £8 I think. All
you do is put the cartidge in the device when it says "out of ink", press
a button and it zaps the chip. Put the cartridge back in the printer and
carry on printing. The next time you see the "out of ink" message it
really will be empty. Well worth the price as it's surprising how much
ink is left when you're told there's none.

Ken Rushton

Hi,
I have an Epson Stylus Photo printer but I got round the ink rip-off by
buying a liitle device called ZAP-IT on eBay. Cost about £8 I think. All
you do is put the cartidge in the device when it says "out of ink", press
a button and it zaps the chip. Put the cartridge back in the printer and
carry on printing. The next time you see the "out of ink" message it
really will be empty. Well worth the price as it's surprising how much
ink is left when you're told there's none.

Ken Rushton



You're screwed anyway. Last I checked, Epson still had the print heads
built into the printer. So when the print head wears out, you throw the
printer away. And guess what? Run the ink dry by using the Zap-It, and
your print head will wear out faster. Just refuse to buy Epson. Go HP or
Canon instead. The fact that you have to use a zap-it should be enough to
convince you that Epson is a company that you should NOT deal with, in any
manner. -Dave

You're screwed anyway. Last I checked, Epson still had the print heads
built into the printer. So when the print head wears out, you throw the
printer away. And guess what? Run the ink dry by using the Zap-It, and
your print head will wear out faster. Just refuse to buy Epson. Go HP or
Canon instead. The fact that you have to use a zap-it should be enough to
convince you that Epson is a company that you should NOT deal with, in any
manner. -Dave


I think that Any company who you buy non-refillable chipped carts from are
ripping off the consumer..
My next printer will be lazer.. My Epson CX3200 gets "Lines" in it
sometimes and stops priting correctly (due to my lack of use I would
guess)..
I can watch the ink meter go from 100% (new cart) to 50% JUST by running the
cleaning process.

The trick is to use cheap copy cartridges. I use Qjet cartridges and you can
buy a pack of four for about the same price as one genuine Epson cart. And
unlike some other brands, the quality is every bit as good as the Epson
ones...

"rstlne" wrote in message
...
You're screwed anyway. Last I checked, Epson still had the print heads
built into the printer. So when the print head wears out, you throw the
printer away. And guess what? Run the ink dry by using the Zap-It, and
your print head will wear out faster. Just refuse to buy Epson. Go HP
or
Canon instead. The fact that you have to use a zap-it should be enough
to
convince you that Epson is a company that you should NOT deal with, in
any
manner. -Dave


I think that Any company who you buy non-refillable chipped carts from are
ripping off the consumer..
My next printer will be lazer.. My Epson CX3200 gets "Lines" in it
sometimes and stops priting correctly (due to my lack of use I would
guess)..
I can watch the ink meter go from 100% (new cart) to 50% JUST by running
the
cleaning process.

Dave C. wrote:

your print head will wear out faster. Just refuse to buy Epson. Go HP or
Canon instead. The fact that you have to use a zap-it should be enough to
convince you that Epson is a company that you should NOT deal with, in any
manner. -Dave

Wow ... you really are amazing ...

As I understand it, Epson makes scanners that are all eminently
compatible with Linux.

"GTS" wrote in message
...
The trick is to use cheap copy cartridges. I use Qjet cartridges and you
can
buy a pack of four for about the same price as one genuine Epson cart. And
unlike some other brands, the quality is every bit as good as the Epson
ones...


Yea, I didnt do this out of fear that something would go wrong with the unit
and they would know about it (thus invalidating my warranty)..
but figguring a black cart going for about 25% of the units cost I soon came
to say to hell with it

On Thu, 24 Jun 2004 21:53:29 +0100, "rstlne"
wrote:


"GTS" wrote in message
...
The trick is to use cheap copy cartridges. I use Qjet cartridges and you
can
buy a pack of four for about the same price as one genuine Epson cart. And
unlike some other brands, the quality is every bit as good as the Epson
ones...


Yea, I didnt do this out of fear that something would go wrong with the unit
and they would know about it (thus invalidating my warranty)..
but figguring a black cart going for about 25% of the units cost I soon came
to say to hell with it


That crap put out by Epson about off brand cartridges voiding your
warranty is pure BS.
Fair trade laws prohibit manufacturers from prohibiting the use of any
cartridge other than their own.
Comes under the anti-monopoly act.
As long as the formulation of the after market cartridge is of the
same formulation as the oem ink then you can use it without voiding
the warranty.
Epson carries the burden of proof when it come to proving that another
brand ink caused actual printhead damage.
That lie as well as the fact that Epson makes a unreliable. crappy
printer made me retire all the one's we used in shop.(stylus pro XL,
stylus pro 1500, Colorado 1650 etc... all collecting dust due to poor
performance and constantly clogging printheads.)

On Thu, 24 Jun 2004 20:20:30 GMT, Matt
wrote:

Dave C. wrote:

your print head will wear out faster. Just refuse to buy Epson. Go HP or
Canon instead. The fact that you have to use a zap-it should be enough to
convince you that Epson is a company that you should NOT deal with, in any
manner. -Dave

Wow ... you really are amazing ...

As I understand it, Epson makes scanners that are all eminently
compatible with Linux.

Crappy, marginal scanners too.
I own a couple of perfection scanner that are really noisy and produce
soft images.(I have to run the unsharp on both to get passable
sharpness. and if I get anywhere near the optical resolution on a scan
the color noise climbs so high as to make the resultant image
unuseable.)