Waste Ink – lings

C’mon, admit it… You’ve had a printer for over 9 months now and it’s looking a little tired and scratched. The shiny exterior has lost the sparkle and there’s even a coffee cup stain on the lid. But what’s this? You’ve just seen the latest model from Canon or Epson, or whoever and wow! It’s got like an LCD screen on it, touch controls and the cartridges are cheaper than your current model…

Usually at this point you get a sort of dream sequence of you dancing through a meadow, hand in hand with your new printer while it makes you a cup of fresh coffee and…

POP!

Yes, it’s a dream… A lousy pipe dream, and here’s a few reasons why that all singing, all dancing printer you saw may not be better after all

More…

It’s been a while since I had a chance to sit and spend 5 minutes thinking, much less write about the situation with Ink Pad Reset (IPR) tools, but, here at last is a summary of the current situation.

? New to the topic of Waste ink counters, Service required or Ink Pad Resets ?
You might want to read this article to get an introduction to these core issues before you catch up on the latest developments detailed below

New printers, New protection

Last year started with the PX700W, Artisan 800 and similar printers appearing and with them came the realisation that these printers waste counters could only be reset using specific adjustment utilities. Unfortunately it soon became clear that such a utility was going to cost you $50+ and couldn’t be shared.

A few months later a new ‘volunteer’ appeared on the net with the ability to remove the protection restricting these utilities. Unfortunately there was some confusion caused by unlocked adjustment utilities being reported as infected/malware. Once that was cleared up, OrTHoTaMiNe, became synonymous with SSC for anyone with that generation of printers.

Next generation protection

Sadly, since then it seems that someone in the Epson camp has been paying more attention to the grey market of adjustment utilities.

It seems that having a baby, especially your first, really takes up a lot of your time so the Waste Ink-lings have been few and far between..

However…

There’s been quite a few developments over the past few months, especially when it comes to the accessibility of suitable reset utilities. It seems Epson are now treating waste counter resets in the same way they treat consumables. Not good news…

I’ll be blogging about this, as well as adding guides for the P50, B40W, R1900 and a much improved QuickFind tool (via OctoInkjet)… So, watch this space

A small problem with a security update pretty much disabled the site for roughly 12 hours but it’s now fixed so apologies for anyone desperate to get to the site articles, we’re now back up and running again.

As with Vista, Windows 7 will not run most adjustment utilities without some help.

This approach is currently untested as my Win7 machine is currently down for repair but hopefully it will prove useful and work…

Compatibility Mode – Windows 7

Note: In most cases you will want to run the program in Windows XP SP2 or SP3 mode

If anyone manages to successfully use their adjustment utility/utilities on Windows 7 using this or another approach please do post a comment with any tips

I will update this guide once my own Win7 machine is back up and working

I had an object lesson and reminder about software security today when someone posted up a series of links to adjustment utilities for printers that a lot of you are looking for (ie: TX100, TX200, TX400, T10).

A post on the SSCLG forum (the authors of the SSC utility) promised a number of “hacked” utilities that bypass the security built into the newer adjustment utilities for printers like the RX690 or T30.

I discovered to my horror that the QuickFind tool on OctoInkjet was broken by some updates and upgrades I applied to the code over Sunday and Monday.

I’ve now figured out what I did wrong and why I didn’t notice sooner so it should be working properly now

Apologies for the SNAFU, but it seems the words “update” or “upgrade” seem to mean “break me” some days and this was no exception.

I’ve been wanting to post this message for a VERY long time now so it’s a real sense of achievement and relief that I can unveil a new tool for locating detailed mod, waste ink and reset utility information for most (if not all) Epson Inkjet printers.

The Tool

This link will take you to the tool directly
QuickFind Tool

What Does it Provide

The new tool allows you to locate the key “waste ink” information relating to your printer, specifically:

1. Instructions for modifying your printer (if they exist)
2. A waste counter reset utility (if available)
3. Compatible waste kits
4. Even the sales zone the printer came from

The tool can now be found on its own page complete with introductory information and a guide on how to interpret the information it provides.

After a bit of confusion regarding the plugin structure, the FAQ section is now up and running

It’s still very early days but I’d welcome any suggestions for FAQ questions and/or categories to include so it can be built up over time.

The new section is easy to find via the “FAQ’s” link above.

Canon MP830

This was something of a unique situation for me as a power surge caused untold problems with my network but particularly bizarre was the discovery that my Canon MP830 printer had managed to turn itself into Japanese mode and presented an error… Uhoh!