Epson r3000 not recognizing 2 cartridges

Hello.
I too have 2 cartridges that aren’t being recognized by the printer.
Printer: epson r3000
Inks/carts: selenium/ cone with batteries
Purchased: late dec/14
Mac: Yosemite
Apps: Photoshop QTR rip, print tool
This is a new virgin printer so only inks/carts are cone.
Problem:
I installed all inks and did test prints. After doing aprox 17 8x10s and 2 13x19s it was time to refill.
No carts were empty just very low.
After refilling and resetting chips I put carts back in.
I get a prompt that Y and C carts are being recognized.
I shut down printer, unplugged power and usb cable, reset carts (with tweezers on contact points) put carts back in, plugged printer back in, turned only to get same prompt.

Not sure what to do here now. I wrote to Jon, explained and he said I need technical support here. So here I am.
Help?
An aside. I didn’t realize at purchase that you offer 2 types of carts. Ones w batteries one w/o.
I would much prefered to have been given the choice.
I would never ever buy the ones with batteries. Never. That they don’t reset until filled (and or empty) is zero matter to me. I’m happy to check them manually.
I seriously don’t want to take a cart apart to replace a battery if I don’t have to. These carts/batteries are really small and if I make a mistake I will destroy the whole cart.
Since this system is only 19 prints and 1 1/2 months old that could be a lot of batteries.
Meanwhile you guys are likely up to your ears in snow and cold and i have a printer sitting!
Any help?
Ty, melissa

Ok
it turned out that i had 2 dead batteries on a system that i would consider new.
I emailed jon as shown above and was asked to post here but i didnt get a reply as of yet.
anyway, i followed the instructions for replacing the batteries as shown.

i did need tiny tweezers and there are 2 little tabs holding the battery in which, you have to pry back.
the instructions i saw didnt mention the tab. i was just hoping i was doing the right thing…

once the tabs are out of the way i used the tip of the tweezers to push battery out from the other end of battery case. its stiff so be very careful. its all very tiny, so have excellent eyes and good light.

i then re-assembled and now i only have to get the clogs out from all this goofing around.

anyway i strongly recommend using the no-battery version of the cartridges if you can.

if anyone knows, can i mix in no battery cartridges with battery ones?
i cannot stand them!
thx, melissa

Hi Melissa~

I apologize for not responding sooner, I was involved in a workshop later last week, so away from my email. I just responded to your first post about this same issue.
It does sound like you probably have two dead chip batteries, as they have limited life of about a year after manufacture.
The non-battery chips are new, and just being introduced into inventory. I have sent you replacement batteries to use with your carts. Battery replacement instructions can be found here: http://www.inkjetmall.com/wordpress/product-use/r3000-cartridge-batteries/

Yes, you can use battery and non-battery chipped carts together in the printer.
The battery chips are good because they can be manually reset, which I personally prefer because I typically refill carts before they’re empty, or when I want to do an initial fill to flush a printer, the cartridge chips need to read full in the printer, and I don’t want to have to use a new set of chips every time I need to flush a printer. The non-battery chips are good because you don’t have to deal with batteries needing to be replaced, but can’t be manually reset.

Please let me know if you have questions or there’s anything else I can help you with.
Best regards~ Dana

hello
Thank You Dana for the reply.
I understand the pros and cons of each. i have replaced another battery and im expecting to do so with the rest. so we shall see how it goes.

i am having a terrible time with vertical banding. Im on a Mac/10.10.2 using QTR K-7 inks, and printing through print tool.
Ive re-installed the epson print driver and QTR as well as replaced my printer cable.

on another forum someone posted a print target, or purge file. its squares of color (b/w in this case) so im trying that. supposedly its supposed clear tough air bubbles.
several other people do this as regular maintenance. who knows!

i have never struggled so much with a printer combo- drives me nuts! this is my 5th or 6th epson printer so its not new to me.

anyway, any ideas for clearing problems would be helpful,
thanks, melissa

Hi Melissa~

How does your printed nozzle check look? (Please feel free to upload one for me to examine). By vertical banding, do you mean lines the opposite direction that the print head moves? Is the banding white or dark lines? Does the banding go across the entire print, or just in certain areas?

Let me know so I can help you past this and onto happily printing!
Warmly~ Dana :slight_smile:

by vertical banding i mean in the print there are vertical lines throughout the print. from top to bottom.
im trying to upload image but its not letting me.
anyway its a typical nozzle check with gaps or ragged-mis aligned lines.
in the case of the black, it comes and goes.
in the case of cyan (slot) its mis-aligned on lines (starting from top going down) 3,4,5,15,16,17.
i cant get the cyan to budge no matter how many cleaning cycles id do.

ive realigned several times as well. in doing that i cant get a solid square which is odd. that is something ive never seen in any of my printers.
melissa

For instructions on how to upload images to this forum, please go here: http://www.inkjetmall.com/tech/content.php?152-How-to-attach-images-to-this-forum

Hello Dana!

well ive finally got good nozzle checks. i believe it was either a stubborn clog, or air in the line.
however i still have vertical banding on the beginning and the end of the prints.
for testing purposes im simply using epson matte. the banding happens for about 1.25" in the beginning and the same amount on the end.
no other banding anywhere on the print.
ive done all the other remedies like alignment and even re-installing QTR and epson drivers/software.
i chose an image to test that goes from black to white top to bottom to make sure its not one particular ink slot.
thanks for any help you can offer.
melissa

http://www.inkjetmall.com/tech/showthread.php?70-solved-Vertical-Lines-at-edges

When I first discovered this issue I was dismayed. I don’t mind leaving an inch border on A3, A3+, 13"x19", but on A4 & Letter sizes that’s a lot of paper lost. (I find that 20mm is sufficient to leave, even though you often see banding beyond that if you only leave the minimum 1/8" border. If you leave 20mm, I don’t see any banding. Don’t ask my what happened to the banding you saw beyond that point - the QTR dithering algorithm is beyond my understanding.) This is almost enough to send you back to K3 printing.

But help is at hand. There is a solution, which is to use a lead sheet and trailing sheet, as is recommended for gloss overcoat printing. See
http://www.inkjetmall.com/tech/content.php?147-Piezography-Gloss-Printing-Tips
and
http://www.inkjetmall.com/tech/showthread.php?604-Strange-marks-on-prints

While this is intended for a gloss overcoat, you can also print the image this way. So I tell QTR that I have a 2" lead sheet and 2" trailing sheet and use a suitable custom paper size. I centre the print on the page. So I do all my A4 printing this way. A couple of tips:

[ul]
[li] I don’t actually use a trailing sheet - it’s too hard to tape it on so that it doesn’t get ripped off and jam the paper path and ruin the print by damaging the page. So long as QTR thinks it’s there then there’s no banding that I can see, and if you try to print too close to the physical end of the page then the printer will sense that there’s no more paper (at least that’s what it does on my R1900) and won’t print anything on the last 1/8" / 3.12mm.
[/li][li] In order to be able to remove the masking tape afterwards, you need to use a very good quality painter’s masking tape and be careful in removing it. Gloss papers are not so bad, but matte papers are trickier and HPR is especially difficult not to remove a bit of the back of the paper with the tape. I don’t peel it away from the edge of the paper, I lift it from the edge of the tape and peel towards the edge of the paper.
[/li][li] And if you do print on gloss and need to dry it with a hair dryer before you apply the gloss overcoat, then whatever you do don’t dry it with the tape attached, because that seems to set the masking tape glue and makes tearing the paper even more likely.
[/li][/ul]

This may sound hard and a lot of work, but it’s not really. You get used to it, and it works. What’s the alternative? Huge borders around your prints?

I’ve seen reports from people using 3880 printers who claim not to get this leading and trailing microbanding. I don’t understand this, especially as you printer is in effect a smaller version of theirs. You do, as do I, and here is my solution.

i never in a million years been able to figure this out. ty ty ty!
its all good now! whew! as for adding leader sheets and whatnot, I’m going to just print with min. 1" boarders its fine.
Should a print be framed, part of that 1" would be under the mat leaving enough space for relief for the eye when viewing.

i honestly can’t believe this was the problem or! that i missed it in the instructions somewhere along the line.
again, tysm!
melissa

It may be worth doing some experiments to see how small a margin you can get away with. It’s been a while since I tried this approach, but my recollection was 20mm, or 0.8". If you get tired of such large borders on smaller paper sizes, as did I, and decide to try the lead sheet approach, then you may find the single sheet feeder a better approach. It’s not as rough as the paper grabbing roller in the multi-sheet paper tray. I assume the R3000 has a single sheet feeder option of some sort.

Yes, desktop printers need at least 1" top and bottom margins due to the tight dot pattern produced by QTR and the printer’s paper feed at the top and bottom of the sheet. As Brian pointed out, a leading sheet can be used, or just sizing your images to leave 1" minimum margins will give you a beautiful and smooth print.

Best regards and happy printing~ Dana :slight_smile: