Some Epson Printers Are Programmed to Stop Working After a Certain Amount of Use

Printers stay one of the crucial irritating items of client electronics, however it seems a thirst for dear ink and sometimes chewing up and choking on paper aren’t the most important challenges of utilizing an Epson printer. As some users have discovered, the {hardware} is likely to be programmed to simply stop working one day, if used too regularly.

The phrase ‘planned obsolescence’ will get thrown round so much with client electronics, as a practice the place a product is particularly designed and constructed with a restricted lifespan in order that it must be upgraded or changed in only a few years’ time. Most corporations deny utilizing this method, or will cite very particular however questionable causes as to why it’s needed, as Mark Haven, a author and lecturer on the University of New Haven in Connecticut, not too long ago found.

Haven recently took to Twitter to share a irritating expertise with their spouse’s “very expensive @EpsonAmerica printer” which, seemingly out of the blue, displayed a warning message stating that “it had reached the end of its service life.” It then merely stopped working, requiring both a servicing to convey it again from the useless, or a full-on alternative.

So what was the problem with the printer? A useless motor? A defective circuit board? Nope. The error message was associated to porous pads contained in the printer that acquire and include extra ink. These put on out over time, resulting in potential dangers of property harm from ink spills, or doubtlessly even harm to the printer itself. Usually, different elements within the printer put on out earlier than these pads do, or customers improve to a greater mannequin after a number of years, however some high-volume customers might find yourself receiving this error message whereas the remainder of the printer appears completely superb and usable.

According to the Fight to Repair Substack, the self-bricking difficulty impacts the Epson L130, L220, L310, L360, and L365 fashions, however might have an effect on different fashions as nicely, and dates again at the least 5 years. There’s already videos on YouTube exhibiting different Epson customers manually changing these ink pads to convey their printers again to life. The firm does present a Windows-only Ink Pad reset utility that may prolong the lifetime of the printer for a brief time frame, however it could solely be used as soon as, and afterwards, the {hardware} will both should be formally serviced, or fully changed.

Just a few years in the past, Epson launched its EcoTank line of printers, which had been particularly designed to handle the extraordinarily excessive value of changing the ink cartridges for coloration inkjet printers. The printers featured giant ink reservoirs which could possibly be simply refilled with cheaper bottles of ink, and though Epson’s EcoTank printers had been dearer consequently, in the long term they’d be cheaper to function, particularly for these printing quite a lot of coloration imagery. But that assumes they really preserve working for the long term. Videos of customers manually changing their Epson printers’ ink pads appear to point that the corporate might redesign the {hardware} to make this half simply user-serviceable, which might prolong the lifetime of the {hardware} significantly. But because it stands, the corporate’s answer runs the danger of contributing to an ever-growing e-waste downside and forcing customers to shell out for brand new {hardware} lengthy earlier than they actually need to.

We’ve reached out to Epson for remark about this performance and have requested the corporate which fashions particularly are affected by this limitation. We’ve additionally requested whether or not servicing is roofed below the printer’s guarantee, and what the fee could also be if not, and can replace this story after we hear again.