All this talk about re-cycling to create a less wasteful green environment. Piffle. I bought a beautiful Epson printer (RX 520) two years ago. It is ( was ) everything I could wish for. But in its guts is an absorbant strip, which soaks up ink each time it cleans the ink cartridges. When after a little time it becomes saturated the machine simply stops functioning - until it is serviced. Only an approved agency can do that   ...  and yes, you guessed it; the cost exceeds the price of buying a new one.

Where on earth is the sense in that? It will be gut-wrenching to throw into the skip a beautiful printer / fax / copier etc; presumably all in perfect working order   ...  for want of a little strip. It will be like taking a car to the scrapyard because a plug isn’t firing properly. What an awful throwaway society we endure.

Coudn’t agree with you anymore. They are license to print money!

next time just buy a cheap laser, think mine was 70-80? does 2000 pages to toner and a toner cost 50?ish, and if you want print out some photos, stick them on a memory card and go some where like Media Markt, it about 15 cents a photo

Jobs a carrot!!

I agee with you, its a throw away socienty we have allowed to be created. I have a juicer and some juice leaked into the motor, the juicer still works perfectly but some old (rancid) juice comes up everytime i use making it useless although the motor works perfectly. The cost of cleaning the motor at a registered company that deals with Molineaux products is more expensive than buying a new one. The old juicer is sitting on the floor beside my front door and i still haven?t the heart to throw it away yet.

When you say that the machine needs a service, is it because you have had an on screen message to that effect?

We had the same problems with Epson 200’s a few years back and found out that this was a preset within the operating software and no service was actually required.

If you have a similar message, just go to Google, put in the model number and paste in the exact message you have on screen - you will probably find a download to clear the message and let the machine continue working FOR FREE!!

For the benefit and information of Epson Users…

Whilst I would be the last to condone Epsons pricing policy on replacement cartridges, I am satisfied that ? for ? they do make damn good printers. The Error Message that comes up normally relates to a protection mechanism that is built into the machine and is normally along the lines of ‘A part has reached the end of its service life and requires replacement. For the normal domestic user this error message is unlikely to appear during the life of the machine…On my Epson R220 the default value for this protection mechanism is 47,000 prints…

It is included because every time you install a new cartridge or switch the machine on, it goes through a charging and cleaning operation which uses ink which has nowhere to go and is discharged onto an absorbent pad. This pad will overtime become waterlogged (inklogged) and will affect the operation and quality of the prints, possibly leading to excess ink on the printed paper.

I was trying to help Mike out with his problem which had appeared on another forum and did so via a series of pm’s.

There is a simple two part fix…

Part One…refer to video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwylF5dHgY4

On the rear of the printer there should be a small detachable panel; with the help of a torch it is possible to see inside the machine when this access panel is removed. A thin silicone rubber tube will be found which is fixed at one end only. This is the discharge pipe from the printhrad to the waste pad. Locate the free end of this tube and using an paperclip formed into a hook, drag the tube outside through the access hole. In the video that I found and upon which these instructions are based, the inventor of the fix used aquarium type silicon rubber tubing and adaptors to extend the original tube so that wasted ink could be discharged into a 100mls plastic bottle. You can then either forget about the absorbent pad or if you are mechanically minded remove the pad and wash it out in hot water and allow it to dry and then re-fit it.

Edit: I have one minor criticism with the gentleman’s video; I strongly suspect that the waste ink is gravity fed rather than pumped into the waste pad; it stands to reason therefore that the bottle which forms a part of the mod should be at a lower level than the print head to allow the waste ink to be discharged. If it is at the same level as the print head the pipe will fill up but will not be able to make it as far as the bottle; it will drain back and probably damage or clog up the printhead…

Part Two

Carrying out the above mod will not however reset the counter… for this you need to download a piece of free software from http.www.ssclg.com/epsone.shtml This software allows you do many things which defeat the chips built into the individual cartridges and in the case of a printer stopped because of a lifex absorbent pad will allow you to reset the printer counter to zero….

From what I can establish just about every Epson Printer is covered (except, as it happened Mike’s!) but even with Mikes we found an alternative. Using the software is simple enough and it covers Windows 2000, Me. XP and Vista

More information on using the software can be found at http://www.page-net.com/frame/pages/Epson printer resetting.htm

Hope this helps someone…

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Yes! You sure fixed it for me and I can’t thank you enough. It’s working well, much to my relief. It did on just the one occasion refuse to operate and the spanner appeared. I switched it off - and on: Normal service has been resumed. Hey, Tourist. I like your buy British goods service. Nice one, mate.

Thanks to all for contributions on this post. I am a girlie but a bit of a teccie (and environmentalist 😉  too… and scratch my head (after shouting blue things out loud) at the apprent wastefulness of how modern bits of kit work these days.
I currently have an HP Deskjet 6540 which I bought about 4yrs ago as I fell in love with its looks as well as what it does.  I noticed the foam pad was getting soaked in ink and wondered when it was going to give up the ghost like my previous HP printer (again, which I would not have changed had I been aware of the above!)... I DO dab the pad from time to time (usually when I put a re-fill cartridge in) - and thankfully I have kept it going (although have noticed quality of print deteriorating over last 6 months.. but wondered if that was due to ink cartridge I have self-refilled over and over 😉
Will give it a go with new HP original cartirdge and see if it is that. Or do all of above to see if I can get jets sparkly and clean again!

Keep up the teccie talk 😉