After buying a continuous ink system I've been printing more and more photos, which means it is important to me that my print heads are clean. To clean them, Epson pumps a considerable amount of ink through all the heads flushing out any dried ink or dust particles. Apparently this ink does not magically disappear, like I thought it did. I got an error message one day giving me a general message about needing to have my Epson R300 serviced before it would print again. So, I googled, and found a tip over at stevesforums.com and followed the guide on how to have your waste ink used for flushing the print heads deposited into a new container, rather than the original sponge (which is full now). Instead of taking photos, I made a video: Epson R300 Waste Ink Bypass Mod It's boring and lasts about 12 minutes, but it is insanely useful and saved me a ton of money. The bulk of the mod took 11 minutes with about 5 minutes of cleanup. Now I can run as many head cleaning cycles as I want, and when my reservoir gets full, I'll just dump it into another container so I can re-package it for friends who use dollar store ink for printing out emails. Plus I get to watch as the head cleaning cycle sprays ink out the back of the printer. (also included in the video near the end.)
nice I will have to ry this on my R320 I upgraded from an Epson R200 and I know I threw away some ink but it wouldn't work without replacing the tanks
" The internets never lied to me " Seems pretty neat, but thats a huge amount of ink to be 'wasting' every time you clean the heads, I bet it gets expensive quickly Moriquendi
I couldn't be bothered to get my drill so i washed out the pads when my printer did the same I dont use it anymore because ive upgraded to a network printer.
It definitely wastes a ton of ink, but that's why I like the continuous ink system I've got. The ink costs $43 for a full set, which lasts about 10 times longer than the OEM ink. So, I usually spent $75 for OEM ink, which means we're comparing $750 worth of ink to $43 worth of ink. I think the colors are a bit vivid on the continuous ink, but I hear you can tweak the color settings with the print driver... I'm just too lazy I could also get pigment based inks for $74 to get a more accurate color as well, but I'm just a little too frugal for that at the moment. Considering the continuous ink system I use was only $65 and it came pre-filled, it was a no-brainer. (CIS kits are not as convenient, but when you save about $700 each time you refill the kit, it's worth it to me)
OneSeventeen: Thanks for the pointer. I have a 210 in the office and at home - I called for a technician to come and service one of them cos' I got the servicable parts error. That was 10 months ago - the parts are apparently not available in Australia. I think these are a great printer for what I do with 'em, photos, cds etc. This will give the extra mileage until something worthwhile breaks. Thankyou again.
