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I am thinking about buying an ET-2400 (brief Black Friday discount = $179) and I have done my research but the one thing that seems to have almost no information is the waste ink pad situation. From Epson’s ET-2400 user guide (see pages 159-160) it tells me that there are 2 different inkpads (one for borderless printing, the other for normal printing). But it also says that these pads are NOT user serviceable components (so there is no Maintenance Box to buy) and that it requires they be replaced by an “authorized Epson service provider”. Any idea roughly how often these pads need replacing?Any idea what it costs to have it done the official Epson way?Any tutorials on DIY that is written specifically for the ET-2400 (for either or both types of ink pads) ?? Any help with any of these questions is appreciated.
A lot of it depends on the frequency “maintenance” is run on the printer, auto and manual but they usually last 5-6 years unless you really run them hard and regularly and get the page count into the 20k+ range in 1-2 years. If you run it a lot, it may hurt you a bit but at the same time regular maintenance will not do much harm - it’s built in to a degree. However, power flushes nuke your waste box service life drastically so much so it’s a NUCLEAR OPTION. Never, EVER utilize the power flush!!! Run full color pages of the clogged color! It was originally sold in Walmart and Target, so that should give you an idea who is usually buying them. Epson cost is simple: as much as a new printer, or you’re SOL. Usually SOL; Epson often denies HW service when you ask them to fix it due to the parts being EOL, or “too expensive”. They would rather give you a one shot reset to get more out of the pad but once that’s done you can’t reset it again. However, since the ET-2400 is derived from the “chipped” box printers which were designed to be replaced, it’s accessed on the same service panel as the serviced ones and only needs a Phillips driver. However, you need to reset the counter which isn’t always possible, or it takes years to open up the reset to 3rd party tools like WIC reset utility (some may never be resettable outside of Epson). Epson used to have somewhat regular tool leaks where if you can find the appropriate adjustment program+keygen, it was possible; like Canon, I suspect Epson has moved this to the cloud logins to prevent leaks and encrypts these tools so we can’t hack/decrypt them.
I use laser printers for a reason, despite color and B/W models that aren’t junk being $400+, or if I get a deal on a used high-end model like a split drum/developer Lexmark CS with a low page count for a reason: This isn’t a problem. However, they’re more expensive to maintain than a $250 ink tank like this Epson, and need more consumables (drums, toner, developer. Some even consider the transfer belt/fuser “maintenance items” at 100-150k pages). Yes, these may require a truck for how big they tend to be in some cases (others need a box truck like the Bizhubs). The best ones in this “lots of consumables, cheap to run” are the Lexmark CS series where they split the drum, toner and developer (they mention the fuser and transfer belt in the supplies page, but I think the split CS series is the outliar and says “when quality is unsatisfactory”) or even the WorkCentres from Xerox. However, all of the major manufacturers sell these but you need to seek them out. Here’s how big some of the “compact” ones are. They’re workhorses, but fail the “consumer convenience” test since they’re not like a Epson EconTank where you take it home and setup the unit:
