My Epson color printer 880, prints erratic and very small print in a light black and sometimes blue color

Did you use Epson Genuine Cartridges? Brother Genuine Cartirdges????
ALL…. Epson & Brother Requires Genuine Cartridges. !!!!!!!!
That sounds like your problem.

In Purchasing Epson's CX 5400, CX4600, & CX7400 and more, I found out that Epson does not like Generic Printer Cartridges. I also Purchased a Brother MFC-240C All-In-One InkJet Printer. That also does not like Generic Print Cartridges. Color that should be Yellow, will turn out Green, Blue Brown, etc.

These printers have a CHIP that will detect if it is Generic or Genuine. When they see it’s Generic Cartridges, it will print lines thru the words, stripes across the picture and also do a mix match with the colors. It also will not let you print anything, if only one of the cartridges is empty.

I wanted to print only Black, and would not let me, because I did not have any ink in one of my cyan cartridges. Go figure.

That's what these Companies do., so they can keep selling the ink cartridges. Some Printers, are able to use Generic, and some are refillable. Some you can refill them up yourself and I heard, quite MESSY.

So I learned, thru trial and error, that you must use the ORIGINAL Genuine Cartridges for these PRINTERS. Some people say some models work fine compatible, but not mine.......

I had to replace the printer, but Epson, Lexmark & Brothers are always on sale. My Brother & Epson cost me $50.00 with Rebate. .

IF YOU ARE USING GENERIC CARTRIDGES, MAYBE IT WOULD BE
BE BETTER IF YOU DISABLE THE INK MONITOR.

This is the only advice I can give you.