Epson Printers' Programmed Death - Canon?

I've recently learned what I suppose many of you already know, that Epson printers have a programmed death. After some number of prints a message appears that the printer is at the end of its service live and quits printing. This happened to me on my Epson All-in-one that I was using in my business. NO warning, it just quits. The counter assumes that the waste-ink pads are full. I found a utility on the web that will reset this death-counter and allow printing to continue. Then I cleaned the waste pads and was back in business; but now the printer requires head cleaning almost every day which guzzles ink like sh*t through a goose. I switched to 3rd party ink but Epson doesn't like that and pops up annoying messages all the time asking if I am SURE I want to use non-Epson ink. Recently my Epson R2400 came up with the programmed-death message. The utility didn't work on it though. My next printers will be Canon but I wonder if they do the same? Any thoughts are appreciated.

Never owned an epson anything, just HP & canon and have never seen that issue on either of them. I finally retired my canon s960 printer after I messed up my second print head by using 3rd party inks..(its a known issue...being cheap has a price) other than that it worked just fine for years...
What I have heard from service company is that the main boards on some of the all-in-ones are cold soldered instead of hot soldered which seems to greatly shorten the life span of the board. What they have done (on occasion) is to bake the main board and get maybe 6 more months out of it before it totally quits..don't know who thought of that....

Never heard of this. Subscribing to follow. I own a R2400 and a 3800. I bought the 2400 when it was first out. It was close to $800 then, so I'll be pretty PO'ed if either of these just stop.

We have an R1800 we use for our event photography. It recently came up with a warning light arrangement that wasn't listed in the manual.

Long story longer, it has full ink pads & they need to be replaced, cleaned, whatever. I was quoted $125-150 to get this done; the printer isn't worth it. We've had the printer for about 4 years ($600 new), thousands of prints off it, it doesn't owe us anything.

Frankly, I was wondering when this was going to happen. We reset the software & now the printer sits in a plastic boot tray. The pads will overflow at some point, when it does we'll just trash it.

We're just hoping the new model comes out from Epson before that happens. With rebates & sales currently on the R1900, we hope it's soon.

Seems to me...ink pads soak up ink, causing you to need to buy ink more often, and then when the ink pads get full, you have to buy a new printer...have I got that right?!

Sorry cant find the post i read yesterday on exacly the same printer but there was a link to epsons site where you can download a program FROM THEM to reset your 2400.
Dont despair there is loads of info on how to reset epsons when they come up with epson service messages.
http://www.epson.com …/Store/s...nkPa​dsForm.jsp
I think this may be it.

Not strictly true wilt but your on the right lines,
ink pads soak up the ink it chucks out when its doing a nozzle check or clean.
But yes it fills the pads up so the manufacturers can sell you another printer.
Unless you know how to get the waste ink away from the pads before it fills them up .
lots of info on the net on how to do this,which is what I did to my very old but servicable
r200 .

Yeah I've seen discussion here on POTN about cleaning out the ink -- what kind of fluid you use (I believe it's between straight water and alcohol) depends on the ink type (pigment or dye) but I don't have an Epson and so don't recall any details...

Epson's Pro line of printers have a replaceable ink maintenance tank. I don't know for sure, but I would assume that they wouldn't have a timebomb on how long the service life is. Either that, or it's much longer than the consumer level stuff.

juiceman72 wrote in post #11772096
Epson's Pro line of printers have a replaceable ink maintenance tank. I don't know for sure, but I would assume that they wouldn't have a timebomb on how long the service life is. Either that, or it's much longer than the consumer level stuff.

Yes, my 3800 shows the maintenance tank as a graphic like any other ink tank, with indications of how full it is. Don't remember about the 2400. Haven't used it myself in years.

butugly wrote in post #11771165
Sorry cant find the post i read yesterday on exacly the same printer but there was a link to epsons site where you can download a program FROM THEM to reset your 2400.
Dont despair there is loads of info on how to reset epsons when they come up with epson service messages.
http://www.epson.com …/Store/s...nkPa​dsForm.jsp
I think this may be it.

Thanks for that link. I had to do some navigating but eventually found the utility for the R2400 and it works. Much appreciated. I have installed a waste ink collection jar bypassing the pads so I should be good for quite a while as the printer still makes very good prints. However this experience has soured me on Epson and I am planning a Canon Pro printer very soon.

And thanks to everyone else for inputs and suggestions. This is a great site!

Qbx wrote in post #11772589
I have installed a waste ink collection jar bypassing the pads

If you got the how-to info off the net, could you post the link?

Update:

WTF !? Seven cents of rubber tubing and an old, empty vitamin jar and Epson wants $150 to do this?

http://www.youtube.com​/watch?v=rHwu2bsKVPs

I'm smelling the stench of a turd here, and that turd appears to be the epson sales department that would rather force you to buy a new printer.

Picture North Carolina wrote in post #11773150
I'm smelling the stench of a turd here, and that turd appears to be the epson sales department that would rather force you to buy a new printer.

Don't think these gimmicks are just strictly an epson thing. My company owns about 4 "pro" level printers, HP Z 3200's, and they've phased out the selling of the most important parts even though these printers are _relatively_ new ( We bought the printers first hand, I'm speaking of the printer design line in general ). They only sell belts and cutters and simple things of the nature. Come to find out they stopped selling their maintenance kits and ink replacement / waste tanks so we had to buy one new even though it could have been fixed with a 900 dollar kit. ( I imagine the printer itself cost in the vicinity of 4000 dollars )
On the other hand, our Epson 9800 runs beautifully and haven't had any problems with it yet even though it's at least twice as old.

Well done Qbx glad it worked for you,my little r200 has the tube and a pot outside at the back and works a treat.Its supprising how much ink gets wasted cleaning and doing nozzle checks.
dont give up with the epson printers, the reason people buy epsons is because they are an excellent printer.
The home and pro printers and it does not matter which make you talk about all have service time scale built in,
my epson 10600 UC holds 1 litre of ink per cartridge and with 6/7 thats a lot of ink .
I wont tell you the cost of cartridges it makes your wallet scream, and you can find out yourself with a quick google.anyway i refill the cartridges at a miserly £50 each so my print costs are very low,and a real bonus is my friend paul is a certified EPSON engineer .as long as my printer does'nt require a new print head then it will keep going for some time with the aid of a few service resets .