Parts Inside Your Printer Are at the End of Their Service Life

Today, while printing with my Epson Photo R200 printer, the following dialog box popped up:

parts inside your printer are at the end of their service life

Ok. I thought. I've used my printer enough now to wear out some major part like a motor or a cog wheel or a print head. I figured it had to be something major.

Next, I googled parts inside your printer are at the end of their service life and I found the following YouTube video. The video is wonderful! The video totally convinced me that I have nothing major wrong with my printer:

Why Replace The Epson Waste Pads?

In the 2 minutes and 33 seconds it takes to view this video, it shows you what a waste pad is and why you may not need to replace your waste pads at all.

For a slightly different point of view, see this video:

Clearing Parts Inside the Printer Have Reached the End of Their Service Life

The second video, which is 3 minutes and 48 seconds long, takes a more conservative approach. It seems to be suggesting you replace the waste pads as long as the cost does not exceed the cost of the printer itself. However, it also makes allowances for those who don't care that much about their waste pads possibly because hey are about to buy a new printer anyhow.

This webpage makes it easy to reset the waste pad protection counter on your Epson printer:

SSC Service Utility

The above page is a download page for some software that you can use to reset the protection counter. It is the protection counter that tells you when your waste pads are likely used up.

I've tried the SSC Service Utility and it worked! It reset the waste pad protection counter ---- no problem. At first, I was slightly confused by the utility. Then I referred back to the download page and read that you right-click the utility on the task bar to reset the waste pad after selecting your printer from the pull-down menu. See instructions on the download page above.

Here's a general discussion on the protection counter:

Parts Are at the End of Their Service Life

I have some thoughts of my own as to why Epson has a protection counter. It occurs to me that some people will print one thousand pages in one month and other people will print one thousand pages in 3 years.

Also, some people live in Florida where the air is wet and some people live in Arizona where it is dry. So, depending on how often you use your printer, and depending on how dry the air is could factor in as to when the waste pad needs replacing.

I'm going to guess that the waste pad may or may not need replacing when the protection counter triggers depending on where you live and your pattern of printer usage. In all probability, the protection counter is conservative to be on the safe side.

I'm sure Epson would rather have a protection counter than have customers complain about ink leaking out of the bottom of their printer. Hence the conservatism of the protection counter.

When programmers write programs, they program for the worst case scenario. The protection counter is probably programmed for the worst case scenario. Just a guess on my part.

Ed Abbott