Epson R2400 Warning: Printer parts at end of service life

[Ralph Eisenberg]

I've been getting this warning from the status monitor of the Mac (10.4.8) version of the Printer Utility (v3.65) for my 16 month-old R2400: Parts in printer nearing end of service life. Intervention Required. See Documentation. After consulting the documentation in two languages, I could find nothing relevant to help me out. Since this is the first time that I've encountered this problem with an Epson Printer, should I be worried? My major source of concern, besides the life-expectancy of the printer, is the poor customer support in France that Epson provides for this level printer. I'm hoping that this is merely a bug in their software, but this may merely be wishful thinking.

 

[Angela Weil]

Epson 2400

This could be the small foam pad that absorbs excess ink. When the pad is saturated, it needs to be replaced. I never had that happening with any epsons either, but supposedly, it's a normal service requirement.
Angela

 

[Ralph Eisenberg]

Thanks for your response, which is most reassuring. I certainly hope that you are right.

 

[Ralph Eisenberg]

Well I spoke with an authorized Epson service center (a monopoly in Paris). It looks like you were right. However, the intervention costs about 20% of the price I paid for the printer. I'd hate to see something serious happen. Apparently, there is a counter that has to be reset to 0, so this is also a programmed intervention. I do find it odd that in the period (over 3 years) I had the 2100/2200, this problem never arose, and I print at about the same frequency.

 

[Angela Weil]

Epson 2400

That's exactly my experience. I had an epson 1290 for several years, later the 2200 for quite some time and neither clogging nor this foam pad issue was a problem. The 2400 is in use for about a year now, no problems yet. However, I don't like to hear that the replacement of the pad could be a costly undertaking. Is this not just a matter of slipping the old out and the new in?
Actually, if you live close to the dealership/service, why don't you go there personally and watch them do it? After that, you can do it yourself next time.

Angela

 

[Ralph Eisenberg]

The professional level printers, according to my understanding, make changing the part in question relatively accessible. This is not the case for the 2400 and other 'consumer' level printers. Epson's monopoly position, until fairly recently, for durable ink printers has been transferred in terms of practice to their unique authorized service center in the Paris area. Also, it may not be necessary to change the small foam-rubber part in question, but merely to reset a counter which is preset to indicate at a particular number, that it is time to change the part. Just getting an estimate (mandatory but deductible) costs almost the price of the repair, and this approaches roughly 20% of what I paid for the printer. You may recall that some years back, Epson received a heavy fine from the European Commission because their ink cartridges were programmed to give erroneous readouts necessitating their change well before this was in fact necessary. For some reason, I have the impression that I'm in a situation of comparable business practices. Certainly an argument to change either printers or manufacturers.

 

[Ray West]

Hi Ralph.

There is software available to reset the counter, afaik. for your printer. It works with other epsons, like my r1800. The standard epson service procedure is to reset the counter once then replace the pad. You can also fit an external waste ink bottle (not epson part). Google around a bit. I and others have mentioned this software before somewhere on this forum, but here's a direct link - http://www.ssclg.com/epsone.shtml it works well, and all you need do is the reset as mentioned in item 7). A ten second job, which allows a rip off service charge. Do not complain that the software does not work on a mac, just buy or borrow an old pc and do the job.

Best wishes,

Ray

 

[Ralph Eisenberg]

Hello Ray,

Thanks for these helpful pointers. Seems like a widespread problem, after doing a brief Google search as you suggested. Oddly, "consumer" level printers, of which the R2400 is one according to Epson, require this kind of costly maintenance attention (not to mention the inconvenience) from an authorized service center. I regret that the 3800 was not available 16 months ago, as it is designed for this procedure to be carried out by the user I believe. Thanks again.

 

[Ralph Eisenberg]

This is just an update.
For awhile the warning mentioned above no longer appeared so that I mistakenly assumed that this issue was due to a glitch in the printer monitoring software and that the issue was behind me. However, this did not prove to be the case. Ultimately I've had to bring the printer in for standard maintenance which involves changing the foam-rubber pads from the waste-ink reservoir. This has indeed cost me 25% of the cost of the printer which I've had for 15 months (on checking my invoice I saw that I mistakenly indicated a longer time period in my initial post). I cannot say that this has bolstered my confidence in the R2400 or its manufacturer in terms of printer use and design efficiency, although my positive opinion on the quality of output remains unchanged.

 

[Ralph Eisenberg]

For the record

While I don't think this is news, I thought it fitting to provide a concluding update out of fairness. After quite a long wait, I ultimately heard from Epson customer service. They offered me "compensatory" ink for my printer well beyond of the cost of the repairs. When I indicated that this would still leave me with a printer that would require the same kind of costly maintenance procedure in the future, they made me an additional offer on the 3800 at less than the cost of a 2400. Needless to say, I have taken them up on this offer.