Help newbie hear - i have just installed a continuous ink supply system to my Epson d88 and the status moniter reads: installed ink cartridges cannot be recognized .
Any ideas how to fix this - please bear in mind i am new to this.
Excellent forum.

Your first port of call should be to make sure that the chips on each of the cartridges are clean and making good contact with the contacts on the printer. Carefully wipe the contact lands on each chip with alcohol to remove any grease or other surface contamination. Wipe the contacts dry before you re-install the cartridges. Hopefully that shold rectify the problem. (If you don't have any alcohol, then a little gin would probably suffice, seems like a waste of good booze though!)

Thanks for the reply, tried cleaning the heads - still have the red light and annoying ink cannot be recognized when i try and print

Now it gets a bit more tricky!! Firstly make sure that the fixed contacts in your printer are not damaged (unlikely), next make sure that the cartridges are really seating properly in their housing, because vertical misalignment may mean that the fixed printer contacts wont contact the chip lands. Whilst you have the cartridges out, check the positioning of the chips against your OEM ones (if they don't appear correct you probably have no chance of getting them recognised because the CIS cartridges are not correct - send the CIS back as "not fit for purpose" or something).

Thanks for taking the time to reply, the printer is new, the carts seem to have a good fit and the chips look just the same as the original ones.
I am using dye sub ink - i am wondering if i have not primed them right - would this make the them not recognised.

Not printing because the system is not primed is quite a separate issue from the failure to recognise the cartridges, so deal with that issue first.

As a confidence booster, just check that the original cartridges are recognised by the printer (you said the printer was new, so they will still have plenty of ink in them). If the originals are OK, then you must suspect that the chips on your cartridges are faulty or of the wrong type (I can't be of more help here, as it is outside my range of knowledge), in either case the CIS vendor should be able to supply chips of the correct type or a replacement system.

If the original cartridges are no longer recognised (assuming that they were OK before you installed the CIS) then something has seriously screwed up your printer, and you will need to get further advice or a new printer under warranty!!. Whatever you do don't mention the CIS, as the vendor may be sensitive on this issue!!

Any other D88 users out there who can shed some light??

Thanks for the advise - i will try it now.
Thanks for taking the time to reply.

Since the last post, I have been browsing though sites featuring the D88 printer, and it would seem that the chips are different to those fitted to other series printers. This site http://www.activity-invest.com/ seems to have plenty of types of chips at reasonable cost if you need some more. Am still investigating though, so expect some more pearls of wisdom!!.



Last edited by Peter_G on Mon Sep 25, 2006 7:55 am; edited 1 time in total

Thanks for the links - i will check them out.

Another thought - see if you can "get at" the chips with the SSC sevice utility. Download it from www.ssclg.com/epsone.shtml.