That is the saying that came up on the $300 Epson All-In-One my friend has. They called for service and were told it would be $80 an hour plus parts and it would actually be cheaper to buy a new printer. They felt bad because it uses 6 ink cartridges and theirs were full and they had 2 extra sets on the side. They didn't know if the new printer would even use the same inks. So they called me, (Dennis R). I checked on line and found a lot of similar complaints. It turns out Epson has a counter in the printer and everything could be working perfectly but when you reach their arbitrary number your printer is dead! People said that when that warning comes up they just want you to call for service and then buy a new printer. The problem is usually that they want the foam strip that catches the ink when you clean your heads to be replaced. Even if it is in great condition. Even if you don't care if it drips because you put a couple of sheets of paper under the machine to catch the drips. You should have the option. They have no right to kill your printer. If you want to print when it is light or dripping ink or ripping your paper it should be your call. They should not kill the printer for you. It is not right.

Well, other people have felt the same way. So somebody did a great job writing a little program called "SSC Service Utility for Epson Stylus Printers". It is available here: [www.ssclg.com]

This is what it does:
"1) Work directly with CSIC in Epson Stylus printers cartridges.
2) Reset or rewrite any chip using special addon device.
3) Freeze internal ink counters.
4) Reset internal ink counters even with empty cartridges.
5) Separate cleaning of color and black heads for all Epson inkjet printers, powerful cleaning mode.
6) Hot swapping of cartridges supported.
7) Resetting of protection counter (even then it is already full).
8) More then 100 different Epson printers supported

This allow many people with high printing demands to save some money (program works with both black and color cartridges).

Up to day this software works under Windows 95/98/ME/2K2/XP with both the LPT and USB printers.

NOTE ! You can lost Epson lifetime guarantee on print head by refilling ink cartridges!"


It took a few seconds and reset all the counters and the printer now (again) prints perfectly.

Hope this helps some else and if it was posted and I missed it please feel free to flame me, tell me to search the forum and what an idiot I am.



ps. It is only for the PC and I forgot to mention that best of all, it is FREE!

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Formerly known as Dennis R



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/26/2006 09:32PM by Dennis R.

You realize this is a Mac - OS X -centric forum, right? I mean this is great info, but that program doesn't work on OS X, or does it? I would like to know if it functions under Virtual PC, if anyone else has tried that....

Yes, I know this is a Mac forum. It did not run under Virtual PC. This is geared toward all the people that have problems with their Epson printers. Many, many people that post here also have or have access to PCs. All you have to do is run the program on a PC and reset the counters and then put it back on your Mac. Many people have used PCs to update firmware on their CD burners and such and this is just another step like that.

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Formerly known as Dennis R

No, no -- great hint, Dennis. I hate it when printers think they know better. I am all for "preventative maintenance," but if I can save $300 on a new printer, I'm all for it. Cheers.

-Tofer

The printer manufacturers are the crack dealers of the tech world. They artificially discount the price of the printer so they can suck you in to buying the printer then they jack up the cost of the ink. You used to be able to get around this by buying cheap generics, but then they started chipping the cartridges. They have definately taken a page from the old "give them the razor so you can charge a ton for the blades" book.

This is an even worse tactic on the part of the printer manufacturers. Unless using the printer would cause you bodily harm, you should be able to use it till it falls apart into little bitty pieces, no matter how it prints.

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Roswell, GA (Atlanta suburb)

Thanks for the info.

This is why I still have my old HP 870Cse inkjet. That thing would print until every color ran dry, and you could swap out ink carts all day long with no problems. I did a few projects where I used all the red ink really quick, but I saved them because I could use the other colors later, and I did.

Too bad I don't really use it anymore though, don't really print much at all in fact. But neither do I use my Epson 820 Photo.

Epson has been getting more and more arrogant. I would download this little tool, because it's gonna get DMCA'd to death in.. oh, maybe 10 hours from now...

If you wanna run 'free' windows software from a russian website, have at it... I'm a little leary without looking into it further...

There have been tools and hacks like this for a few years now. Nothing new.

if you want to be smart, run it under Bootcamp or Parralells and dump the image if you have to, if it gets infected with something.

Wow, I didn't look at it enough to see it was from Russia. All I can say is it came highly recommended on a lot of sites about Epson printers. I say it reommended over and over. We did run virus and spyware programs after reading this and it did not show there were any installed.

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Formerly known as Dennis R