Hi again,

Firstly you shouldnt need a chip restter as far as I know, because the chips should autoreset when the "level" falls below a preset limit. As for the " incompatible" - pass, maybe the chip has passed its "sell by" date!!. Try cycling the power to the printer, that ought to fix it (fingers crossed). I personally wouldn't go for cleaning cartridges, but prefer to place a wet pad of absorbent paper under the print head when it is in the "unparked" position (power off, move locking latch if there is one and gently slide the cartidge over the pad). As an alternative to water, you might want to invest in some head cleaning fluid (many sources). This has always worked for me in the past when using dye based inks - so will probably work with pigments as well.

Congratulations!! A reply from Everest - indeed you are honoured - I should buy a set of spare tubes whilst you have the chance. You can always sell them on to me as a standby if you dont want them, as mine had to be drastically shortened to remove severe kinks due to poor storage and packing. In fact buy two sets so we both have a spare set!!

Your point 5) had me thinking, perhaps some refillable cartridges from MIS might suit you better if your throughput is low. Don't buy their chips as they are overpriced in my opinion, there are a couple of sources this side of the Atlantic who sell for a fraction of the MIS price. MIS have a good website, worthwhile forums, and their customer service appears excellent, so check them out if you are considering changing direction.

Your point 3) is worth considering for filling a system - I used it on my Everest CIS when it had to be dismantled and reassembled to fit my 890 printer (got rid of tube kinks at the same time). I did not need a "vacuum pump" such as they describe, I found that a 50ml syringe would do the job quite satisfactoriy (see my pics in Martins gallery).

If they are autoreset chips, they require you to turn off the printer for a few minutes and back on again to reset them. They won't reset by themselves, despite the name, just because the ink monitor says the ink is low. It'd be nice!

You can buy all the 4 and 6 wide hose you want from MIS http://www.inksupply.com along with replacement hose barbs and lots of other supplies.

And CIS's -are- rocket science, if more manufacturers treated it as such then the end users would have a lot fewer problems. See my signature for more info.

I've heard of people filtering inks through a lot of things including coffee filters. No idea if any of them work worth a darn, after all a coffee filter might as well be 1/4 inch screen compared to the picoliter sized droplets the printer fires.

Have you tried pulling ink out via the outlet ports on the cartridges? See how hard it pulls?

How is the level of the ink in the bottles?

Pigmented inks do settle, if undisturbed only a few months may be sufficient. Simply sucking some ink out will -not- mix it up. You could kind of swish the tanks around, or suck some ink out and spray it back in with a syringe.

I use pigmented inks, and I swirl the tanks every few weeks. About once a month, I take the cartridges out of my Epson 3000 and give them a gentle swirly.

Alien Steve
http://www.polyphoto.com/tutorials/bulkinksystem/ExtensiveThoughtsOnCIS.html
http://www.polyphoto.com/tutorials/bulkinksystem/HydraulicConstantPressureExample02Web.jpg
http://www.polyphoto.com/tutorials/PrintHeadCleaning/

Hi

Quote:

If they are autoreset chips, they require you to turn off the printer for a few minutes and back on again to reset them. They won't reset by themselves, despite the name, just because the ink monitor says the ink is low. It'd be nice!

Thats's what is meant by "cycle the power"!!

Quote:

You can buy all the 4 and 6 wide hose you want from MIS http://www.inksupply.com along with replacement hose barbs and lots of other supplies.

The tubes from MIS are considerable less flexible than the ones supplied with the Everest kits, and doing a straight swap might well have repercussions on the positioning of the tubes during a traverse of the cartridge and require the bracketry and fixings to be rethought. In addition the width of the tube ribbon and wall thickness is different on the MIS version, so there will be an additional issue in threading the tubes though various apertures. I know - I tried it, and it is more trouble than it is worth.

There is nothing wrong with the MIS tubes if the system is configured to use them in the first place, but as a replacement I think you might be making difficulties for yourself.

Incidentally, the Everest ink reservoirs have just the scheme that Aliensteve is suggesting for maintaining a constant hydrostatic head at the cartridge outlet. Once a small quantity of ink is used (or the reservoir is "reset" as he calls it), the level in the air inlet tube drops to the bottom of the tube and remains there until the overall ink level falls to that point. Trouble is that the level is still sensitive to both temperature and atmospheric pressure, so you would need to keep an eye on the weather and "reset" the reservoirs if the temperature rises or the pressure falls. Also if there is any air actually in the ribbon tubing, that may screw up the constant pressure feature somewhat.

I didn't know that about the difference in hose size and flexibility. Nor did I know that Everest uses a constant pressure system. That's great! Sounds like it just relies on regular printing keeping the tube empty of ink?


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Alien Steve
http://www.polyphoto.com/tutorials/bulkinksystem/ExtensiveThoughtsOnCIS.html
http://www.polyphoto.com/tutorials/bulkinksystem/HydraulicConstantPressureExample02Web.jpg
http://www.polyphoto.com/tutorials/PrintHeadCleaning/

Steve,

I think the MIS tube is made by Freelin-Wade in polyurethane, as a sample I obtained from them appears identical to the MIS tube. Not sure what the Everest tube is, but it may be PVC and has a much thinner wall.

The Everest reservoirs are quite neat and quite a reasonable design apart from the ink outlet which is right at the bottom. Unfortunately the manufacturing quality is c**p, and mine are showing signs of ink seeping into the joints after only 8 months.

Looking at pictures of CISS reservoirs, many manufacturers appear to have wised up to the constant pressure system, and have designed their reservoirs accordingly.

Peter

Just thought I'd update for the record, and report that I've binned the Everest CIS. Scrapped. Set aside. Decomissioned.

I decided to carry on with their ULTRACHROME inks as I felt they were OK and the colours & lighfastness were good.

I bought a set of virgin cartridges from INKSUPPLY / MIS ( still only the sponge variety for the 2100/2200 ) and filled them with the Everest inks... And hey presto! Perfect nozzle pattern first time.

Releif .. ( for the time being ) Apart from the fact that they supplied 2 dud chips which I swapped with the Everest ones - so I'm now mixing auto resets with resets..

Fun and games.. ( not ) but I'm a lot happier now. I agree, CIS is a kind of rocket science

Great, glad you have sorted youself out. Meantime I have ditched my venerable 890 which had begun spewing blobs of black ink when it felt in the mood - usually just as printing of a large photograph was finishing. Suspect that something might be amiss with the flexible cable, as it only happens on the extreme left of the prints. With the 890 goes the Everest CIS as well!

Bought a brand new and boxed Epson R220 at a give away price (<£60 at PC World clearance sale) complete with a set of carts that are selling for around £66 in some places!!. Problems with Kirkland paper when using MIS inks might make me stick to the all Epson path for a while whilst I work on a scheme for refilling the Epson carts or adapting them for CIS. If you want more of the ink/paper saga, then look at the MIS ink forum at this link. Suffice it to say that printing will be more expensive for a while! Incidentally, the speed of the R220 was a revelation compared to the 890 - real tortoise and hare job.

http://mis.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=356

I am looking at an easy DIY solution for refilling or CIS use of the T0481 - 6 carts used in many printers including the R220. When I have a documented proceedure I might ask Martin to host it on this forum if I am in his good books.

Peter_G wrote:

I am looking at an easy DIY solution for refilling or CIS use of the T0481 - 6 carts used in many printers including the R220. When I have a documented proceedure I might ask Martin to host it on this forum if I am in his good books.

Hmm... well we'll have to see about that

Sounds good.. Feel free to put something together and we'll see about popping it into the Knowledge Base if we can...


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Printers: (Canon) MP500/830, MX700, iP4000/4200/4300/4500/5200, iX4000(A3) (Epson) C84/86, D88, CX6600, R285/800/1900 (HP) K550, K850, K5400, L7680

I have to say I am much happier re-filling cartridges rather than all of the tubes/open printer covers/air locks. The MIS virgin empties are great apart form ONE problem:

I filled and inserted a complete set only to find that the Photo Black and Matte Black error/empty lights flashed ( Epson 2100 7 colour printer ) and so couldn't print. I then used an EVEREST universal chip resetter but no luck. I then swapped the two chips with the old ones from my EVEREST CIS and hey presto! All was fine ( apart from the two blacks reading half empty in the Epson utility ).

I then emailed MIS and they sent me two replacement chips. Guess what. SAME problem

Surely this is too much of a coincidence ? Any ideas ? Will I have problems combining the 'auto reset' EVEREST chips with the resetable MIS ones ? Would I be better off trying the two black chips from an old set of LYSON cleaning cartridges ?

Thanks for any help - the MIS forum is completely dead at the moment!

jensieboy wrote:

I filled and inserted a complete set only to find that the Photo Black and Matte Black error/empty lights flashed ( Epson 2100 7 colour printer ) and so couldn't print.

Took me a bit of time but soon figured out that you're using standard chips and just want to reset them... In truth given your situation I'd just stick to putting the Everest auto-reset chips in but make a very strong point of topping them up every X period of time so you can be 100% sure that they don't run dry.

Shouldn't cause any problems just so long as you remember which chips are which.


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Printers: (Canon) MP500/830, MX700, iP4000/4200/4300/4500/5200, iX4000(A3) (Epson) C84/86, D88, CX6600, R285/800/1900 (HP) K550, K850, K5400, L7680