Epson Waste Counter Reset

[Dion Worles]

Ifyou own an Epson printer, you may have encountered the dreaded "waste ink pad full" error message. This error occurs when the printer's waste ink pad, which collects excess ink during cleaning and maintenance, reaches its maximum capacity. When this happens, the printer stops working until the waste ink pad is replaced or reset.

Replacing the waste ink pad on an Epson printer can be a daunting task, but it's essential to keep your printer functioning properly. In this article, we'll guide you through the process of replacing and resetting the waste ink pad on your Epson printer, step-by-step.

Before we get started, it's important to note that replacing the waste ink pad on an Epson printer can be messy, and it may void your printer's warranty. If your printer is still under warranty, we recommend contacting Epson customer support for assistance.

The first step in replacing the waste ink pad on your Epson printer is to locate the pad itself. Depending on your printer model, the waste ink pad may be located in different areas of the printer. To find the waste ink pad, refer to your printer's user manual or search online for instructions specific to your printer model.

Once you've located the waste ink pad, check its condition. If the pad is heavily saturated with ink or is disintegrating, it's time to replace it. If the pad is only partially full, you may be able to reset the waste ink counter instead.

Before replacing the waste ink pad, it's essential to clean the area around the pad to avoid ink spills and ensure a clean work environment. Use a damp cloth or paper towel to wipe away any excess ink, and be sure to wear gloves to protect your hands.

To replace the waste ink pad on your Epson printer, you'll need to disassemble the printer and remove the old pad. Again, the process will vary depending on your printer model, so be sure to refer to your user manual or search online for instructions specific to your printer.

After replacing the waste ink pad, you'll need to reset the waste ink counter to clear the "waste ink pad full" error message. To do this, you'll need to enter your printer's service mode and run a waste ink pad counter reset utility.

INKCHIP provides the best software to reset your printer's waste ink pad counters. Just download our utility and with the WIC reset keys you can reset the ink pad counters to zero. It only takes a few seconds to easily reset your printer.

Any time the printer completes a mini-maintenance routine, a printhead cleaning function is run or even when cartridges are changed in the printer, this value/counter will increase according to a carefully calculated equation in the printers firmware.

Time and a reset utility. The equation or algorithm used to calculate waste ink will (or has in the past at least) factor in how long the printer has been in use and adjust the counter trigger point to account for potential evaporation of the fluid from the waste ink pads. This is why some really old printers never seem to hit the waste ink message for years.

I have an Epson four year old R2400 that has been regularly used. Yesterday, after changing a cartridge, it stopped working. A call to Epson (on Saturday) diagnosed the problem as likely being related to the ink pads reaching the end of their useful life. The options were:

I examined the pads, and the pads on the left side (standing in front of the printer) were saturated and overflowing. I blotted these up with some tissue. The pads directly under the print head when it is at rest looked fine.

My understanding is that the ink pads are used for nozzle checks and for borderless printing. I haven't had to perform many nozzle checks (other than those automatically performed when changing cartridges) and perhaps 20% of my prints are borderless.

Running the utility gave me some sense of the "mileage" on the printer, something called "ink shots" which are reported by cartridge. Five of my cartridges reported between 11K - 14K ink shots. The lowest was 5.3K.

I'd like to continue to use my printer. Should I replace the ink pads and if so where can I get new ones? Or should I install a waste ink system like the one Ink Republic sells? Or is it time to upgrade (I've been eyeing the 3880)?

I don't know where to get the waste pads but the alternate waste system (bottle and tubing) simply feeds the waste ink out bypassing the pads. I could not find a mac version of the ink reset utility so I spent $125 at my local epson authorized repair facility and got back a beautifully serviced machine ready for many more prints.

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codfish

my photography journal

I was able to buy tubing and used a grocery store salad container to build my own waste ink tank. It was a trial and error process (with more than a little mess) to find the right size tubing and make a tight connection. But it has been working fine for over a year - having gone through more than 20 ink cartridges.

The problem is the head cleaning pad at the left of the printer. It fills the same pads and doesn't get cleared by the waste pump. I have to use paper towels to remove up all the ink that builds up there or it ends up depositing it on the bottom of the print head. I usually try to clean the pad before I start an important print.

The other day I had to use the SSC Utility to reset the printer myself. It was double the original "max". I then printed a 13x36 panorama. It looks great. If this printer only had a waste pad that the user could replace - like the 3800 and higher - they could keep running for a long time.

I have EPson XP-950 and SSC utility doesnt supports this model.

Actualy as I can see SSC has no support 10 years already.

So I have searched in google and downloaded new WIC Reset utility - it supports maybe all new Epson models.

So it worked perfect. Firast I have downloaded WIC utility and checked waste ink counters in my Epson XP-950 - and the values were more then 100% so the counter was overflowed.

I buy reset key and reste my printer by myself.

I moved the heads into position to expose the pads and used lots of tissue paper sprayed lightly with window cleaner and it absorbed the ink very well. Repeated the process until the pads were clean and no more ink went into the tissue papers. Probably not the perfect solution but better than nothing, I would have thought....

That's what I do with my R1900: tissue and distilled water. Repeat several times (you will not reach the point where no ink comes off the pads anymore unless you're very patient and have lots of tissue). Machine is still working fine, but I'm a very low volume printer, that will certainly help as well.

Tissue wetted with distilled water helps the absorption of ink with my printer. Without it, the tissue soaks up much less ink. It won't clean the pads, they stay black, but you can see they become less saturated with waste ink. I prefer distilled water because I don't know if Windex can have some detrimental effects on the pads or other parts of the printer. Just to be on the safe side.

Windex evaporates very quickly. From my experience it has no detrimental effect on pads or any other parts of the printer. Of course I do not splash it all over the entire guts of the printer to test the effect of it on some delicate internal parts of the printer but using it wisely for cleaning the pads lends a very good result.The pads become almost white and look like new.You might be surprised how much ink was still left in pads after using the distilled water only.

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Assuming you've learned about waste ink pads, the process of replacing the pads or redirecting the waste ink to an external tank/kit, is only half the job. If your printer started displaying the "service required" or "waste pads in printer have reached end of service life" error, you still need to reset the printers internal waste counter(s).

When this article was originally written (back in early 2005 or so) the situation regarding options was pretty poor and there were very few printers that had accessible waste pads, much less the chip equipped maintenance boxes. So things have changed considerably.

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