Best Refillable Cartridges for Epson R200?

[golfnut]

Just the cartridge with good chips, do not want a CIS system, just a good dependable cartridge with a reliable chip that doesn't execute a cleaning cycle every time you print or turn on your printer (this wastes a lot of ink as you know). What have you had success with and where can I buy them? Thank you very much for your help.

[videobread]

Don't have your answer but, your comment on the cleaning cycle using ink is a misunderstanding. I've been through it. I have had clogged print heads that when cleaning used a bunch of ink - the cleaning cycle. The ink is really not being used up or going anywhere. It is still in the cart. Just the software reading changes. The ink reduction shows on the computer, but is still in the cart. I have gone through a whole cart trying to clean a head. The ink shows empty in my Epson software. The cart was in fact full just falsely reading as empty.

[rbatty11]

I've only tried a few, like Megatoners (cheapest), MonsterInkjets (cheap) and those that Supermediastore.com sells (very good price when purchased in sets of 2 or 3). I had problems with Megatoners' cartridges. Will probably stick with Supermedia's since I've not yet had any problems with them and color is very acceptable, imo. Also, supermedia has a 30-day guarantee/warranty.

[Denvers Dawgs]

I just got the smart carts from printforless and have no problems with them so far

[HacktheHacker]

I switched to Staples own brand 6-8 months ago and get perfect results. It still goes through the cleaning cycle each time I start but uses very little ink. These cartridges are using less ink than the Epsons ones. They are half the price to.

[Wile_E]

I've been using the refillable ink carts and bulk ink for my R200 from www.printonadime.com
I put some prints side by side vs ones that I print with Epson ink. I couldn't tell a difference. The color is the same and looks good.
I even routed the waste tube to the outside of the printer into a little bottle. That way I'll never have to have printer serviced due to the ink pads getting soaked with ink.

I will confirm though that the Epson cleaning cycle does in-fact use lots of ink! My printer got clogged one time and I just refilled the ink to the top in each cartridge. I had to run several passes(about 7-8) of the cleaning cycle. I saw ink flowing into the waste bottle. Checked my carts and some were half full. Also when you turn on the printer it goes through a priming process which wastes ink. A good bit of ink goes into my waste bottle. I use the SSC Service Utility to initiate cleaning cycles.

[golfnut]

Thanks to everyone for taking time to reply, I really appreciate your advice. Have a great day.

[highvolumeJP]

Just the cartridge with good chips, do not want a CIS system, just a good dependable cartridge with a reliable chip that doesn't execute a cleaning cycle every time you print or turn on your printer (this wastes a lot of ink as you know). What have you had success with and where can I buy them? Thank you very much for your help.

The cleaning cycle of your printer is a function of the firmware inside your printer and not your cartridges ! Your printer should not engage in a cleaning cycle EVERYTIME you ask for a print job, that is not normal, unless there is a certain period of time between print jobs. It should go into a cycle every other day or two or between large print jobs but it is usually determined by the firmware usually through a timer. When the printer detects non EPSON chips (which are usually detected as UNKNOWN) this could have an impact and then the printer would perform more of these cycles, but again, it is at the firmware level. This is a thing that will happen with any 3rd party chips you will use (non EPSON) and any company that advertises otherwise is lying to you. A printer will also engage in a cleaning cycle when it detects a 100% value in the cartridge chips.

There are many levels of cleaning cycle, a short cycle, that usually consumes about 1% of ink, and this is the cycle commonly used by the printer every now and then. Next step is a 3%, then the large cleaning 7% and finally the initial charge cycle which is 15% I find that the best cycle to rid of persistent clogged nozzles is the 7% and then leave overnight.

I use Print On a Dime refillable empty carts, unfortunately the auto reset chips reset to 100% instead of the promised/advertised 90%, so that sends printer into a cleaning cycle each time a color resets. I have yet to hear about an auto reset chip that functions as advertised.

But in regards to your concern about cleaning cycles, you cannot avoid this unless you use genuine epson chips. You can always remove that striped tube from the pump, although personally I would not recommend it myself, or get one of those always-full chips and a CIS system.