Should I refill All Inkjet Ink at Once ?

[valeriansantosa]

My Epson L300 printer has warned me about ink shortage. And after checking the ink tank, the black ink almost 95% empty. Meanwhile other colors are around half used. (As a student, documents are using black ink most of the time)

So, the question is : Are there any errors if I only refill one color? like the ink indicator will fail or something?

Thanks

 

[jojesa]

My Epson L300 printer has warned me about ink shortage. And after checking the ink tank, the black ink almost 95% empty. Meanwhile other colors are around half used. (As a student, documents are using black ink most of the time)

So, the question is : Are there any errors if I only refill one color? like the ink indicator will fail or something?

Thanks

Yes, you could fill up the black tank and also add more ink to the others less used tanks as desired.
That's precisely the purpose of having an EcoTank series printer.
Even if you don't print in color, they get used by the printer when printing black to "enhance" printing.
By the way, don't let the ink in the open bottle for long periods it will affect printing quality.
Also keep the bottles at cool temperature in a dark area.
The ink indicator will not fail just because you add ink before is empty.
Be careful handling the ink, if gets in your clothes, desk, etc it might not come off.

 

[dizzy_davidh]

Not really an answer specific to your Epson but you could always dump your current model and get a really cheap HP colour printer and sign-up to the HP Instant Ink printer cartridge service. You won't have to worry about ink levels or cartridge age again and you'll save yourself a ton of money in the long run.

I did and it saved me a ton of hassle!

 

[jojesa]

Not really an answer specific to your Epson but you could always dump your current model and get a really cheap HP colour printer and sign-up to the HP Instant Ink printer cartridge service. You won't have to worry about ink levels or cartridge age again and you'll save yourself a ton of money in the long run.

I did and it saved me a ton of hassle!

The HP Instant Ink service is good for a home or small office setting where you print up to 100 pages.
If you print hundreds or thousands of pages you will save a ton with Epson EcoTank ink bottles. A black ink bottle could yield 4000+ pages.

The HP service comes handy, if you like to print high quality photos, where ink is used a lot on a single page.

 

[Paperdoc]

jojesa suggested you refill the color inks, too, because they probably are getting low at the same time. And that is because the printer may use Black PLUS all the other colors to print black text.

I stuck the "may" in there for a reason. Letting the printer do that just wastes colored inks, but many printers do that by default. It is "inherited" from cheaper printers that don't use black ink, and can only print in a simulated black using all three colored inks. BUT look carefully in the printer configuration settings in your system, OP. A printer like that ought to have an option you can select to print using ONLY Black (thus saving colored inks) when you need to. Often this is not a permanent setting - it may need to be specified at the beginning of each print job. I have a Lexmark color laser unit and I'm in the habit if setting configuration settings for each print job as I do them. It has choices for what ink to use (black only or not), whether the document is all just text, or contains graphic elements also, etc. Often with a simple page (like, a website screen shot of a invoice for something I buy) I set it to print black only and just text content, because I don't need any fancy detailed graphics or color. I do the same thing on that type of job if I use a color ink-jet printer.

 

[valeriansantosa]

My Epson L300 printer has warned me about ink shortage. And after checking the ink tank, the black ink almost 95% empty. Meanwhile other colors are around half used. (As a student, documents are using black ink most of the time)

So, the question is : Are there any errors if I only refill one color? like the ink indicator will fail or something?

Thanks

Yes, you could fill up the black tank and also add more ink to the others less used tanks as desired.
That's precisely the purpose of having an EcoTank series printer.
Even if you don't print in color, they get used by the printer when printing black to "enhance" printing.
By the way, don't let the ink in the open bottle for long periods it will affect printing quality.
Also keep the bottles at cool temperature in a dark area.
The ink indicator will not fail just because you add ink before is empty.
Be careful handling the ink, if gets in your clothes, desk, etc it might not come off.

Thanks for the warning, I'll be careful...

 

[valeriansantosa]

Thank you for all who gave up their time to answer this simple question.

Have a great day!!! : )