hp-toolbox and refilled cartridges ??

[Chris Mohler]

On Wed, Jul 16, 2008 at 7:34 PM, Ed Greshko <Ed.Greshko at greshko.com> wrote:
> William Case wrote:
>>
>> Hi all;
>>
>> Sorry for the number of posts lately.  I am trying to work my way
>> through F9 fixing and tweaking all the little issues that have been
>> around on my machine for the last 2 - 3 Fedora versions.  I am almost
>> finished.
>>
>> I recently had my HP #74 refilled rather than purchasing a new one.  It
>> works fine but hp-toolbox (and the WindowsXP gui thingie) continues to
>> tell me that the black cartridge is still "very low".
>>
>> Does HP have some secret little way of telling I am using a refill and
>> therefore refuses to acknowledge it?
>
> Yes, they do.  The circuitry to detect low levels is on the cartridge itself
> and it locks at the lowest reading.  A long time ago a friend of mine found
> some software on the net to reset Epson cartridges.  You may have to go
> looking for the same magic for HP.

Yeah - I try not to use any printers with chips on the cartridges if I
can help it.  I have a Canon Pixma that has a prism in the bottom of
the cartridge that is used to determine the ink level.  I vote it
'Best Ink Level Monitor Ever", since it actually reports the level of
ink.

Carts with chips just count the number of print passes - they have no
way of sensing the actual ink level...

There may be a hardware reset like this:
http://www.misterinkjet.com/hp45_15reset.htm

But you will need to google around for your particular model of cartridge...

Good Luck!
Chris