R300 ink Pads

You will probably need to find a service utility program that includes your machine to reset the purge and waste counters. The link below should take to to one of several sites that you can download it from. Follow the instructions and it should be relatively simple. Once you have reset the machine counters your printer should work again and you can decide if you want to risk disassembling it to remove and clean or replace the waste ink pads lining the bottom of the printer. Please note that if you don't clean the waste pads, there is a real risk that the pads will overfill and leak waste ink under the printer.

please clean ink pads place and re install in pads and solve the problem

A very good printer, I have one myself. Everytime you change your ink carts or do a head clean ink is shot through the print heads and pumped to absorbent waste pads. There is a limit to how much ink the pads can take so there is an internal counter which is giving you the message.

There is a safety margin so you can reset the counter yourself, instructions and download link here

http://inkjetprinterhelp.us/epsonSSC.html

I would recommend getting an external waste ink tank as well though here is a link for that or you could do a Google search for an alternative.

http://www.octoink.co.uk/products/Solo-Waste-Kit.html

The Epson Stylus series of printers do not have this feature. You can find out more inso at www.epson.com. Hope this helps.

Hi,

You're experiencing the printer equivalent of a small child with a full nappy... The printer has reached a point where it believes that it's waste ink pads (again the nappy analogy) have filled with waste ink from cleaning routines, etc... so it's trying to tell you that it needs someone to change it.. Preferably a nice expensive Epson technician ;)

The good news is that this is probably one of the most documented issues in the Epson inkjet history and the fix is pretty simple.

You can take your printer to a service center and get them to change the pad over

OR

You can modify the printer to use an external waste tank (either a home made kit or one purchased on the web).

The instructions to handle the latter are available in various places and this forum post links many of them together whilst also dealing with the method for resetting the waste ink counter which will clear the "Service required" error you're seeing now.

Hope that helps and if you hit problems, please ask again.

Best of luck.

This usually means the Waste Ink Pads in your printer are saturated with ink and the waste ink "protection" counter has exceeded its limit. You can restore your printer to a working condition immediately by using the SSC utility - download from:

http://www.ssclg.com/epsone.shtml

Install it, and double click the ssc printer icon in the bottom right corner (System Tray). Choose Configuration and set your printer type (C4x), then close the ssc window. Now right click the ssc icon in the sytem tray and choose Protection Counter. Check the current count value - if it is greater than the limit shown it will confirm this is your problem. Then choose reset to set it to zero. You will need to fib about having changed the waste ink pads! Turn the printer off then back on again. This will stop the lights flashing and restore normal operation.

However, remember that eventually ink will overflow from the waste ink area and make a dreadful mess, so you must change the waste ink pads before this happens. This requires the disassembly of the printer. If you decide to have a go at replacing the ink pads yourself, report back and I will provide further help. It is a pretty simple job once someone explains how to get the case apart!

If this solution helps you, please rate it; if it doesn't, please provide further information by posting a new comment.

This means that the waste ink pads in the base of the printer are full and need to be replaced.

There is a much easier solution which is described here with information on how to redirect the waste ink and reset the waste ink counter in the printer so the printer will allow you to print again.

If you have any problems, please add a comment and I'll do what I can to help.

The R2400 is quite an expensive printer and changing the pads would likely knock the printhead out of gross alignment so if you really must change the pads then I'd recommend getting it done at a service center (much as it pains me to suggest it).

The only time it's really essential to get the pads changed though is if you do a lot of borderless printing as this dumps ink straight to the pads and bypasses the popular external waste ink tank modification.

My recommendation would be to consider getting the printer serviced this once and then immediately install an external waste ink system to your printer and use the SSC or A10-IPR utility from Epson to reset the waste ink counter from there on in.

All the info you need is available via this link

Hope that helps, even if it is a little late..

The same instructions available all over the internet for the R300 should suffice for the RX500...

In terms of resetting the waste ink counter, the SSC utility will provide the necessary compatibility as well...

try this rescue kit that includes everything you need to do the job, including how to clean the old pads instead of buying new ones.

http://www.tradebit.com/filedetail.php/2379162-Documents-eBooks-Technical