Epson p600 waste tank question...

[Morris Taub]

I bought a p600 about a year ago. A year later, after having to deal with family problems, I'm about to plug it in for the first time, pop in the starter cartridges. But I did see a video on the p800 showing how it has an easy to change waste tank.

What happens when I need to clean, change the waste tank on the p600? Is it even possible?

If not, does the printer stop working or something?

Just wanting to know what I can expect. I bought the smaller printer because I don't envision printing a lot or printing large.

thanks
Morris

[schertz]

In the P600 the waste ink tank/pads are not meant to be user replaceable, once filled you will get an error message indicating that the printer needs service. There is a utility that allows you to do a temporary one-time reset and keep using the printer. You can have the printer repaired or buy a new one (Epson's recommendation) at that point. It's one of the major disadvantages of the P600 compared to the P800. Here is a link to a FAQ:

https://epson.ca/Support/wa00369?utm_source=support&utm_medium=van&utm_campaign=ca-ipr

Mike

[rdonson]

Mike nailed it.  The larger ink tanks and the waste tank made the P800 a no-brainer for me.

$16.45 for the P800 waste tank (one of the first things I bought after the printer).

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/460395-REG/Epson_T582000_Ink_Maintenance_Tank.html

[mdt]

Ok. Mike, Ron, thanks for the link and info. Guess I'll use this printer up and see what to do when the time comes. I should have done a bit more research.

Morris

[Ferp]

With many of the Epson desktop printers that come with waste pads rather than a waste ink cartridge, it's possible to fit an external waste ink tank.  This way when the printer considers the pads full, you simply reset the counter and continue.  You have to be a little bit handy, but only a little.  The vendors of these external waste ink tanks usually supply instructions.  I am fairly sure that this was possible on the R3000, and so I imagine it would be also on the P600.  My hunch is that the same kit and instructions would work.

[Morris Taub]

With many of the Epson desktop printers that come with waste pads rather than a waste ink cartridge, it's possible to fit an external waste ink tank.  This way when the printer considers the pads full, you simply reset the counter and continue.  You have to be a little bit handy, but only a little.  The vendors of these external waste ink tanks usually supply instructions.  I am fairly sure that this was possible on the R3000, and so I imagine it would be also on the P600.  My hunch is that the same kit and instructions would work.

Thanks Ferp, found something called the 'printer potty' with a simple google search...seems like that would be a good solution when the time comes. I assume I shouldn't install something like this until needed.?

I bought printer first week of December 2015 so the warranty is already done. Not afraid of that. Just figure let the printer do what it's supposed to do until it can't anymore.

Would it be suggested to install this ink waste solution from day one?

I think I'll finally be plugging it in this weekend. Make some test prints. Try some paper I have samples of.

Yay!

M

ps...I just ordered that external waste solution. 27 euros shipped from England. Think I might fit it before I even set up the printer. This way I don't have to play around with ink filled tubes, etc. I don't suppose that fitting that system, the ink potty, before i do the initial start up/set up would affect anything.

[Garnick]

With many of the Epson desktop printers that come with waste pads rather than a waste ink cartridge, it's possible to fit an external waste ink tank.  This way when the printer considers the pads full, you simply reset the counter and continue.  You have to be a little bit handy, but only a little.  The vendors of these external waste ink tanks usually supply instructions.  I am fairly sure that this was possible on the R3000, and so I imagine it would be also on the P600.  My hunch is that the same kit and instructions would work.

You are correct, many of the older vintage wide format printers were quite accommodating in respect to add-ons, such as the one you've mentioned for the waste tank.  However, with these newer versions and all of their built in features, they are not nearly as accommodating.  In other words, I would be quite surprised if you could install the external waste tanks and have the printer continue to work as usual.  Epson generally makes more money selling inks, media, and other necessities than on the actual printers, so with the latest iterations they have built new chips that will simply lock you out of the printer if you're not using OEM inks etc.  In this case, "lock you out" seems to mean that you would require a service call or take the printer to an authorized tech to reset it so that it would be usable once again.  Now that may possibly be a slight exaggeration, but everything I've read on this subject points in that direction.  I hope Wayne will chime in on this one, since he is a dealer as well and would have the latest information on all of this. 

Morris - I would definitely get more info and think twice before ordering an external waste unit for the P600 that may indeed be a waste of $$$.  For many years I've been resetting the chips on waste tanks, both for the 7600s and the 9900.  However, for the P7000 for instance that will not be possible, since the new chips are set to be used only once, and manufacturing a chit resetter would seem to be a massive undertaking.  As a matte of fact, I believe I read on this forum that Epson had devoted a few years and a large amount of $$$ to these new chips, both ink and waste tank.   

Gary

       

[schertz]

I don't know how the P600 determines how full the waste tank/pads are. It may be a simple timer, a counter for how many cleaning cycles the unit has performed, or perhaps a sensor of some type. Without more info I'm not sure that an external tank would help at all (assuming you didn't break the printer installing it). It also sounds like once the printer has decided it's full, it can't be reset more than once anyways.
I don't know if anyone has owned a P600 long enough to reach the EOL anyways, for all we know it might take 5 years to get there. There just isn't enough information at this point to determine how much of an issue it really is.
YMMV of course... :|

Mike

[rdonson]

Mike, that's an interesting question.  I really don't know how Epson calculates how full the waste tank is on the P800 either.  I know it can show me a little graphic of much is used and warn me when it's full but how it knows is either status is a complete mystery to me. 

[Ken Doo]

Gary is right here. Epson spent resources to develop their new printer chip/boards to make it extremely difficult to use 3P inks. But their efforts have gone too far imho. With the old 98** and 9900 series printers, I could re-set the maintenance cartridge tanks and repack the tanks with new cotton filler pads. I figure less waste in the landfill is being more "green" and a good thing.  Not anymore.  The chip/board used on the new Epson printer series won't recognize a "reset" maintenance tank. Epson's efforts go beyond the OEM ink---it extends to even squeezing you for even maintenance tanks, and more waste in our landfills.     I also have a stack of NEW maintenance tanks for the 9900 that I cannot use on my new P9000. It is the same maintenance tank!  You must use new P9000 tanks (they are the same old tanks!) with their new chip installed.

I'd be real hesitant about trying to reset anything or using any aftermarket products on the "new" Epson printers, including the baby P600...

ken

[Ferp]

Gary is right here.

No he isn't.  There seems to be some confusion about the anti-third party cartridge technology built into the latest Epson ink cartridges in these new SC-P series printers, perhaps including the maintenance cartridge chips in the Pro printers, and the waste ink arrangements in the P600.

The P600 is different to the P800 and all the Pro Epson printers.  It doesn't have a maintenance tank, so there's no waste ink chip to reset.  It has waste pads at the bottom of the printer.  The printer has an algorithm for determining how much ink has gone down the waste ink tubes and into the pads, I assume from the number of head cleans, and how much waste ink the pads can hold.  Once the magic amount of ink is in the pads the only official way to keep using the printer is to have the pads replaced and have the waste ink counter reset by a tech.  Note - this is not a chip, it's an internal counter. 

Now I confess that I haven't checked that the P600 waste ink counter can be reset, but it would have to be possible because an Epson tech needs to be able to do it, and it's been possible on all other such desktop printers without a maintenance cartridge.  In fitting an external waste ink tank to the P600, such as the unfortunately named printer potty mentioned above, all you are doing is unplugging the tubing that leads from the capping station to the waste ink pads, and having the ink drain instead into the external tank.  No chip involved, no lockout issues. Contrary to Gary's view, the printer will continue to work once it's fitted.

As to when to fit an external tank, my view would be that if you're going to have to do it at some stage, then you may as well do it as soon as the warranty has expired.

p.s.  Just to be clear, if you fit an external waste ink tank, and eventually get to the point where you get a printer error message saying that certain printer parts (i.e. the waste ink pads) have reached the end of their useful life, then you don't need an Epson tech to reset the counter for you, you can use the WIC reset utility from 2manuals dot com.  You have to buy a single use key, but it's only around ten bucks, which is much cheaper than either a service to replace the pads and reset the counter, or a new printer.