Continuous Ink System (CIS) for: Epson Artisan 50 Inkjet Printer (Related Cartridge # : T078120, T078220, T078320, T078420, T078520, T078620)

Given how much cartridges cost, I would never considered owning an inkjet printer. If not for this Continuous Ink System.What you get: practically unlimited printing. A standard cartridge holds 7 ml of ink, "high capacity" one holds 13 ml. This system holds 120 ml of each color, and refilling it does not cost much.What you lose: mostly aesthetics. Your printer cover will not close all the way anymore; you'll need to sacrifice some space on the desk next to the printer. No, you can't put it behind the printer, hide it in a drawer or put it on the shelf. It has to sit next to the printer, at its right side.Putting it all together requires a little skill and lots of patience. First, removing the cover of the cartridge compartment is not trivial: the plastic part holding the cover snaps in place by an arrow-shaped tab that you can't see. You can either break the thin plastic (no big deal, since you won't be using the cover anyway) or use two screwdrivers to push the two sides of the tab. Second, be sure to follow the instructions to the letter. In my case, some air entered the black cartridge, and I had to clean the nozzles three times to get it to print right. One thing that's not in the manual: use a sharp knife to trim the film covering the ink outlets, so that no film is protruding to the sides. Without it, I did not get the cartridges to snap all the way as they should.One last thing. If the printer does not accept the cartridges ("The cartridge is not recognized" message), don't be discouraged. Just press the "replace" button, and press the reset button when instructions say to do so. You may have to repeat the process several times, but eventually the printer will be satisfied with the new cartridge. Don't worry if it does not print all colors right away; repeat "print nozzle check pattern" + "clean nozzles" cycle a few times, and you'll get it working.All in all, it's worth it, just be patient and very meticulous during the installation.UPDATE: after a while, all 6 cartridges show as "not recognized". Emailed the seller, no reply. After maybe 200 resets, I got it to work again. Several weeks later, all 6 are "not recognized" again. I am giving up on this one. There is another CIS for my printer, without the "reset" button. Each cartridge resets automatically when printer power is turned off. That works much better.

This is the third version of this product for me. Had an Epson 200, then 260 and now Artisan 50 (needed the DVD label printing ability). All worked flawlessly. The Artisan 50 version, however, only resets the cartridge that is identified as empty (prior version reset all when any one showed empty). This results in a series of 6 times that printing is stopped to reset carts as they never run out at the same time. It's a minor thing but irritating if you are in the midst of a rush job. At the utterly ridiculous price of cartridges even at discount mine has already paid for itself in less than three weeks.The install can be a bit tedious especially the plastic tube you are supposed to insert to enable the lid to press down the useless button Epson cleverly placed on the top of the printer body. Can't see any use for it except to add one more barrier to use of devices like this one. I used one of the plugs (you replace with a filter) that seals the tanks for shipment. A small rubber more or less T shaped plug. Push the T end down on top of the button until the T portion goes below the plastic and it is a permanent but removable fix. The plastic tube was not quite large enough to stay in place and held the lid up about an inch. This is a much better solution.I rigged some coat hanger metal wire holders to hang the reservoir unit on the end of the printer just below the level of the print heads. Keeps the cat from relocating the unit. She knocked the last one to the floor, well not quite to the floor. The tubing wasn't long enough so several pulled out and suspended the tanks a few inches off the floor. The resulting drainage created a foot diameter rainbow puddle in the carpet that was not greatly appreciated by my spouse.I find no difference at all in print quality. The inks appear to be excellent and even produce very good photo quality prints. All in all an excellent product and worth every penny. Just secure the tanks and use the plug on the button and it will outlast your printer.

I love this CIS it was very easy to set up, I had a few tubs with air in them but I cleared them easily with the included syringe. I had some problems with the square shaped adhesive pad that holds the tubing to the cartridge compartment, I had to move it a few time to find the right spot so it would not interfere with the carriage movement and when I finally found it the pad keeped popping off, so I super glued it and problem solved. I print directly on to DVD's and quality is great. This is by far one of the best buys a person can make if they do a lot of printing and want to save big bucks.

I installed this CIS into the Epson Artisan 50, following all the instructions to the letter. I had it running and did the head cleaning a couple times to get it started. The black ink would not print and that is typically not good for photographs. I did the head cleaning a couple more times and tried printing a black test that turned out light grey (getting lighter as it printed). I figured there was air in the line, so I followed the instructions for clearing air from the line using the syringe. I cleared a bunch of air from the line, so I figured that would solve the problem. Another head cleaning and test print... Black! Yeah. Then a test photo. The transition from deep black to dark grey is printing brown. Figure that one out. I print a gradient and the dark black is fine, light grey is fine, middle grey is fine, dark grey is brown. I can't understand why it is not working, but I am out of ideas. I even cleared the lines of all the other colors, figuring I might have an issue with another cartridge.Unfortunately, I did not install this CIS until I ran out of the ink that came with the printer, and that was almost exactly a month ago. That means I would likely pay more in shipping it back for a partial refund. It may have worked great for others, but I am one of the unlucky ones. It did not work for me and I just wasted the money I could have spent on refillable cartridges. Lesson learned.