What's the best strategy when a low ink warning comes on?

[Aristoc]

I have an R2880.  I am trying to decide what the best strategy is for replacing cartridges as they go empty. If one goes empty how will I know if I should change a second or third cartridge at the same time even if that cartridge is not empty?

(I am not talking about swapping matte/photo cartridges in this question)

Thanks

[dgberg]

You do nothing when the warnings come on. (If you not have a spare cart of that color-order one)
Just keep printing until the printer stops.
When a cart goes empty the printer will stop. Open the door replace only the empty cart and continue printing.
Nothing should skip a beat,your print should come out perfect.
At least thats how most of the Epson's work.

With a low warning you may not be able to do a cleaning cycle until replacing that cart.
You can replace it with a full one for cleaning and then insert the other one and print with it until it goes empty.

[probep]

You do nothing when the warnings come on. (If you not have a spare cart of that color-order one)
When a cart goes empty the printer will stop. Open the door replace only the empty cart and continue printing.
Nothing should skip a beat,your print should come out perfect.
At least thats how most of the Epson's work.

Yes, that strategy works on Epson printers.
But it does not work on Canon PIXMA Pro printers (Pro9000, Pro9500) - the printer doesn't stop and the print becomes defective.

[Aristoc]

So far my question is not clear.  Whenever you change a cartridge, the printer does a self cleaning and wastes some ink from all cartridges.  So what I am asking is that isn't it better to change the empty cartridge and alsoother cartridges that are getting close to being empty ?  Is this making logical sense to do this ?  Of course I guess what bothers people is that if the only change one cartridge which is empty, and then one or two prints later, they have to change another empty cartridge so soon, and the printer wastes ink each time on all cartridge changes, then I guess it bothers people to change a second cartridge so soon.

I am wondering what is the best strateg to minimize ink wastage.

[Czornyj]

I am wondering what is the best strateg to minimize ink wastage.

There's no good strategy. Switch to 3880 with larger carts - maybe...

[dgberg]

You may want to check your manual but I am not sure it is cleaning,just charging the replacement ink line. Either way I would see no benefit in replacing carts before they are empty.
Your printer is of the latest technology and is truly not an ink hog.
My two larger printers hold 11 700 ml ink carts each or about $5500.00 to replace all of them.
Count your blessings!

[JohnHeerema]

I think that your strategy is a good one. When I changed carts on my Epson 2200, all of the carts would go down in volume when I replaced one cart, due to the cleaning/recharge cycle it performed when inserting a new cart. So if there was another colour which was almost at the end, I'd replace it too (there's a balance of course - this is only worth doing if the remaining ink on the not-quite-empty cart is less than the toal ink consumed by a cleaning/recharge).

[Aristoc]

john .. you ..are .. right.. how much ink is used from all ink cartridges during a change. I think I read that about 1.5mL is used from each ink cart. during a single cartridge change. Is this right or wrong ?

[Randy Carone]

Don't change ink until that particular color won't print. In the long run, that is the best method, so stick to it, even if once or twice you have to do colors back-to-back. Over the long haul, changing one at a time wins, IMO.

[Ramonn]

What a coincidence. I created an account five minutes before reading the forum so that I could ask a question very similar to the topic here. My concern is am I throwing away ink if I replace a cartridge when I get the warning from Epson in the printer window or is the cartridge completely empty. The concensus seems to be to continue printing until the printer stops, and , at that point the cartridge is totally empty. Does this practice result in any damage to the printer?

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

What a coincidence. I created an account five minutes before reading the forum so that I could ask a question very similar to the topic here. My concern is am I throwing away ink if I replace a cartridge when I get the warning from Epson in the printer window or is the cartridge completely empty. The concensus seems to be to continue printing until the printer stops, and , at that point the cartridge is totally empty. Does this practice result in any damage to the printer?

I did exactly that many, many times with my old Epson 2200 and it never caused any problem. The nice thing was that switching to a new cartridge when the printer stopped in the middle of a print never resulted in any visible problem area on the print. Perfect match, new cartridge to old every time.

Eric

[aduke]

I did exactly that many, many times with my old Epson 2200 and it never caused any problem. The nice thing was that switching to a new cartridge when the printer stopped in the middle of a print never resulted in any visible problem area on the print. Perfect match, new cartridge to old every time.

Eric

+1

Alan

[John R Smith]

Aristoc

What most people are missing here is the fact that the R2880 (and the 2400, which I own) have very tiny print cartridges. So the ink loss from the other seven carts when you replace an empty one is very significant, compared with say a 3880 and its much larger carts. I have my waste ink lines run out to a catch bottle and the amount of purged ink used on a cart change is very much greater than a head clean, I can assure you. I have measured it. So the best strategy is, as you have already surmised -

* When a cartridge runs empty, replace any other cart which is flashing red at the same time, even though they are not yet empty.

This will save you money in the long-term.

John

[Aristoc]

Thanks John.   My post by the wasy is not a complaint at all. I just wanted to know at what point, exactly , should I change a second or third ink cart ? You said only when there is a red flash [X]. But maybe we should be changing a cart even before it gets a red X on the printer ink levels screen. To know for sure I think we will need to know how much ink is actually used from all ink carts during a cartridge change.

I thought I read somewhere how much ink is used during a cart change but I can't find that.

[John R Smith]

I have the figures for all this stuff - head cleans, cart changes - but they are at home. There are three levels of head cleaning.

John

[Aristoc]

It would be very interesting to see those figures for cart changes as I am getting close.
Now this figure is just an example from my R1900. It doesnt matter which printer. They all use some ink from each cartridge after the cart change. So from this picture..which ink cart or carts would you change ?  would you just change T0877 or just T0871 ? or more ? That is the question.

[dgberg]

Thank you David and agree with your comments.
I have been printing for 3 months with 6 low lights on my 7900 and 9900 carts.
I also cannot imagine it making sense to change carts that are not empty,empty.

[Aristoc]

dan and david..your printers have HUGE carts. The little carts on a printer like the R2880 of only 11 mL it does make a difference. If there less ink left in a near empty cart, than is used during a cart change, then i might as well change that cart too. Makes sense. But only on these little cart printers.

  I am trying to find out how much ink is used during a cart change on my printer.

[John R Smith]

dan and david..your printers have HUGE carts. The little carts on a printer like the R2880 of only 11 mL it does make a difference. If there less ink left in a near empty cart, than is used during a cart change, then i might as well change that cart too. Makes sense. But only on these little cart printers.

  I am trying to find out how much ink is used during a cart change on my printer.

Aristoc

Dan and others, fair enough, but we are not talking about the wide-format printers with big carts here. The ones Aristoc and I are using have such ridiculously tiny carts we can hardly keep up with changing them.

I have done some digging and found the figures. They are second-hand, but from a source (who I respect) on Photo-i who says they are from the Epson R2400 Service Manual. I would imagine the figures for the R1900 and R2800 would be similar.

Cartridge replacement – 0.386 gram per colour ink usage

Cleaning cycle 1 – 0.194 gram per colour
Cleaning cycle 2 – 0.510 gram per colour
Cleaning cycle 3 – 0.809 gram per colour

So, if 1 gram ink = 1 cl (near enough), then each cart change uses 7x.386 cl of ink from the other 7 carts. Which is 2.7 cl of ink, and at my best price in the UK of £11 for a 13 cl cartridge, that costs me £2.29 in wasted ink each time I replace a single cart (I am paying £0.85 per cl).

Right. So if you replace a cart and there is another cart which is down to 1/8 of its capacity or less, by keeping the low cart in place you are only saving 13 divided by 8 or 1.6 cl of ink. But you will use an extra 2.7 cl when you come to replace it. And you don’t in fact save 1.6 cl, because the cart change will take down the remaining ink to 1.23 cl. You (in my opinion) are better off junking the 1/8 capacity cart (and any others which are this low) in addition to the empty one. As well as (possibly) saving some money, it saves time messing about cartridge changing, which is always a pain.

This of course only applies to the A3 and small-format printers. When you get to the 3880 and larger, the sums will be different.

John

[Aristoc]

Hey John
Thanks very much for giving us the data and figuring it out. Your calc's seem just about right. I have only so far been able to eyeball the ink volumes left in cartridges. 1/8 seems pretty close to me. What this means is that if there is about 1/8 or less ink in any additonal carts besides the empty one you are changing, then you should also change those additonal carts.
Peter