Epson workforce WF-7110 not recognising Epson print cartridges

[serengetisnow]

Hello, I have had this printer for a few years and even when it was new it has been a nightmare to get it to recognise new print cartridges. I should have flagged it up straight away and possibly got it replaced but it is far too long ago to get that fixed now!

I only ever buy the proper Epson cartridges and when fitted it always says 'ink cartridge not recognised'. Usually after switching it on and off many times and putting the cartridge in and out it eventually accepts it but I am not winning at all with the latest cartridge. Please does anyone have any suggestions? Many thanks

 

[VA1DER]

I have an Epson WF-7720 that uses the same 252 cartridges. I do use aftermarket refillable cartridges, and have been frustrated with the same problem as you both with Epson and non-epson refillable cartridges. The contacts are a bit flakey, I'm afraid. One of the problems being that the cartridges are located right on the print head and get shaken around every time the head moves.

You can see where the contacts are that make connection to the cartridge chips. You can use some contact cleaner on them, which can help, and on the cartridge chip to before you put it in. If you can find an old-style pen eraser those can help. The style that has some grit in it which actually takes the surface off the paper. Use that lightly on the contacts then some contact cleaner after.

If you get frustrated enough, you can get a chipless firmware for your printer. This removes the need to even have a chip, so the printer won't care if the chip loses contact. Do be careful, though, chiplesssolutions.com is really the only vendor that has a reliable solution, and I am not 100% convinced their installer doesn't have malware. You won't end up with malware on your printer - I have a printer with their firmware and it's clean, but the firmware installer does show up on some malware scanners. I think it's most likely a false positive, but would still advise caution when installing it. I would use an older laptop if you have one, take a complete image of the computer's hard drive before installation, make sure it's detached from all networks before you use the firmware installer, then restore to the backup afterwards. You should boot into something like a live Linux stick when you make and restore to the backup.