3880 VLM cart not recognized

I have two sets of IJM refilllable carts for the 3880, which I am setting up for Piezography Pro. On the full Piezography Pro IJM carts I get the following error message on the control panel, always on slot 8 (VLM): “Ink Cartridge Error”. Second set of carts is currently empty, (destined for PiezoFlush), but I tried the chips on them too, but to no avail.

I have two sets of chips, all of which are recognized when in the Epson carts. When I take the Epson chip out from under the IJM control chip and place the Epson chip back on the original Epson cart, the printer is happy and starts charging the ink. This is the same for both Epson chips with both original Epson carts and both sets of IJM carts (I tried all the combinations). The carts have the following info on the boxes they came in: “RCS-38XX-80-VLM AUG 2016” and on the side the cart says “Refillable Cartridge 38XX 80 ml capacity” and on the end the cart says “Light Magenta LM”

I have tried various shimming of cart in its slot and underneath the Epson chip, but it made no difference.

The carts were part number RCS-3880-80-KIT9 and were ordered in October, 2016.

The printer is a “new” 3880, freshly remanufactured by Epson and bought directly from Epson. I took it in for warranty repair (Mardek, in Weymouth, MA, and they were great) and it got a new ink delivery system and a new print head. Mardek put in my IJM cart after the repair and it showed the exact same error message. Mardek inserted an Epson cart and it recognized it and started charging. Exactly the same as before all the repairs.

Both control chips say “3880 VLM” and all the attempts were in slot 8 (VLM). All other carts are accepted.

From the above it appears to me that that the 3880 VLM control chip or the cart itself is the problem. Thoughts?

Hi Pip,

We will send you two new VLM control chips to replace the ones you have.

I will try and get those out today if possible but our warehouse may have stopped shipping already.

Regards,

Jon