Epson Waste Ink Pad Reset Utility R260, R280, R380, Rx580, Rx595

[mikling]

Here's where the waste ink pad tank is located, just in front of the printhead park position. You can physically detect when the pad is truly full.

The problem with the waste ink pad full notice is that with a light user, there is sufficient time for the ink to dry and thus the pad is always not saturated. With continuous operation, the situation might be different and it could truly become full. Corporations don't want to get sued for ink spilling over and damaging property so they err on the side of caution. Producing a machine that can truly assess the situation could be costly.

 

[fish]

Mikling,

The R280 is not indicated on their list of printers. Not supported?

 

[mikling]

Ooops, you're right that model is possibly too new i would guess. I imagine they will update the list.

I had a closer look at the R280 and the ink waste tanks are not directly accessible and judging by the compact dimensions would probably be much smaller.

 

[websnail]

Corporations don't want to get sued for ink spilling over and damaging property so they err on the side of caution. Producing a machine that can truly assess the situation could be costly.

Let's be honest, the bigger concern for Epson is the customers seeing just how much ink is wasted and screaming about it. Given all the work that's gone into sensors in cartridge it really wouldn't have been hard for Epson or anyone else to create a system to measure things properly but they want to sell more printers, more cartridges and most of all they want to move people away from printers that are easier to refill, etc... and onto their newer models with tougher anti-3rd party measures.

Gotta love them... Not!

 

[mikling]

While they do want to make more profit, I had previously described what a head cleaning entails which is a large consumer of ink. So let's be rational here and have some pity for the engineers working on this system. A head cleaning basically sucks ink from all the cartridges and nozzles that are enclosed within one parking frame. The volume of ink removed from each cartidge is not metered precisely at all and will depend on how many nozzles are clogged and what the internal flow resistance of each cartridge is. The total colume of ink is metered correctly because the peristaltic pump is quite accurate and can produce high pressures/vacuums. You can easily rationalize that if one color has many clogs then less ink will be extracted as compared to the other colors associated with that parking frame. All the printer can register is that a head cleaning was done and that NORMALLY only so much ink would be pulled out.

Therein lies the dilemna of engineer. The process of cleaning the head throws out the ink shot count accuracy of the ink level monitors. Their only recourse is to err on the conservative side and leave a higher reserve as letting the ink cartridge run dry will cause further problems.

There's definitely a profit motive corporately but the engineers have a difficult situation. You'll find that Canon cartridges have a similar issue with the new chipped cartridges. The indication of empty by the chip will not always match the physical levels because that purge unit /head cleaning unit throws a wrench into the works. So both Epson and Canon have issues with this part of the printer cycle.

 

[websnail]

Oh I agree.. they have to waste ink otherwise you end up with the printer doing a great impression of a paper weight

... what I don't agree with is their attitude towards the machines life cycle.. ie: making it harder to reset waste ink counter or redirect waste ink flow...

But anyways, we're getting off topic... *shuffles off apologetically*