5 Epson Secrets

Today I will discuss how to use third-party inks to refill Epson printers. Epson doesn’t make it easy to do because they want you to spend lots of money on their inks. Fortunately, I’m here to explain how to get around that so that you can save some money.

Step One: Force your Epson Printer to Accept Any Cartridges

If you take a look at your Epson cartridge, you should be able to find a little chip in it. That chip records how many pages you’ve used that cartridge to print. Epson cartridges have a hard cap on how many pages you can print. Once you reach that maximum number, your printer will start giving you an error message or telling you that the cartridge is empty and won’t let you use it anymore.

This will be a problem if we want to refill and reuse these cartridges. Even after you refill it and put it back, the cartridge will still tell the printer that there’s no ink left. This is because Epson cartridges don’t have any mechanism to monitor ink levels and rely solely on the chip’s page count.

To get the rest of this process to work, we’ll have to get the page number back to zero. The first way to do this is what I call the “chipless” method. Since the chip is the only thing telling your Epson printer whether or not there’s any ink left, one of the simplest solutions is to tell Epson you’re using a cartridge without a chip.

It used to be that to make your ink cartridge register as chipless, you either had to work in the industry or know somebody that did. Fortunately, there are now multiple websites available that offer software so you can do this process yourself. Unfortunately, a lot of these websites are also a scam in disguise.

If you’re having trouble differentiating between scam websites and legitimate ones, I recommend using InkChip.net. While your antivirus software may flag it as a virus, I’ve used it successfully enough to know it’s not.

I’m always wary of viruses when using this kind of technology, so if I talk about it or show it in one of my videos, then it’s a company that I trust and that I’ve used enough to know it’s legitimate. The last thing I want is to use harmful software in one of my videos and have other people make the same mistake at home because they saw it and thought it would be okay.

Once you’re on the website, click on the soft(ware) tab. You should see a list of printer models, so scroll through and look for your printer’s specific model number. To the left of that, there will be four links.

If you click on the first link, it will take you to a Youtube video. This video is there to help you understand how to do the installation, but since you’re already here and I’ve done this process so many times, I figure I might as well walk you through it.

The first step is installing special firmware on your printer. If that step is successful, we will return to this website and buy a key code. Another reason I like InkChip.net is the more keys you buy, the better discount you get. This is handy because I go through this process fairly often.

If you follow all the steps and the process is unsuccessful, do not buy the key. That means your printer is not compatible, and it would just be a waste of money.

The second link, to the right of the YouTube video one, is the link to download the firmware I mentioned. You need to connect your printer physically to your computer using a USB cord. If you connect the printer wirelessly, this process won’t work.

After plugging it in, you must put your printer into firmware update mode. You can watch the linked video for more information on how to do that. Regardless of your model number, I’d like to reiterate that not every printer can be converted to chipless. That’s why it’s essential to try putting the firmware on your printer before spending money on the key.

The file you download will be compressed into an RAR file. If your computer’s RAR version is old, it may need to be updated. To do this, you can go to RARLAB.com and download the trial version. Once it’s updated, you should see that the file’s icon has changed. That means it worked.

After the installation says it’s complete, you should leave it sit for a few minutes to make sure. Eventually, your printer will display a message saying, “program update mode finished.” Now you can just tap randomly on the screen until it turns off.

Once that’s done, purchase and download the key file. Your windows may pop up a screen asking if you want to run it, so just click run anyway. When you start it, it’ll check if the file needs to update and do so automatically. Afterward, you should be able to see your printer in the dropdown menu. Otherwise, you may have too many printers hooked up to your computer.

Select your printer from the drop-down menu, hit activate online, and copy and paste the key you bought. I cannot possibly emphasize how important it is that you keep a copy of that key code somewhere on your computer enough. You’ll need it if/when you need to reinstall it.

Another important step to making sure the chipless solution remains effective is turning off your printer’s automatic updates. If you let it update the firmware, it will override the InkChip firmware, and your printer will no longer register as chipless. If the firmware is successful, the printer should always read the cartridges as full, even if you completely remove them.

Step Two: Make a Transparent Epson Cartridge

Now that we’ve made your printer chipless, it won’t stop you from printing with a refilled cartridge. However, that also means your printer won’t tell you when the cartridges are running low. To fix this, I will show you how to make your Epson cartridges transparent so you can see the ink levels.

You’ll need some kind of razor blade or sharp knife. Use your finger to lift the tab holding the part with Epson printed on it in place. Use your sharp object to pry that up, working your way around the outside until you can get it off.

The next part can be a bit tedious. It can take as many as five or six minutes of scratching at the corner of the plastic film to get it to peel up even a little bit. Once you have a large enough piece peeled up, you can use your finger or the knife to start peeling it. Carefully peel that opaque black layer of plastic off.

Be careful of the angle that you’re peeling. You don’t want to peel the outside, so peel it as horizontally as possible. If the clear inner part gets detached from the cartridge, the ink will leak, and it won’t work anymore. If you’re just doing this to see how much ink is inside the cartridge, you don’t have to peel the whole thing unless you want to.

Step Three: Refill Any Cartridge with Any Ink

Next, we have to make the cartridge refillable. To do this, the tool I usually use is a three-millimeter drill and a plug. You’ll also need a needle and a syringe. The type of ink you use is up to you, but I recommend BCH brand ink, which you can buy at https://bchtechnologies.com/.

You can visit the Epson website to determine your cartridge’s ink volume. The 802 can usually hold a maximum of 20 mils, and a standard cartridge can typically hold 10.

For this process, drill the cartridge upside down. The problem with drilling from the top is that it can cause debris to fall into the cartridge. Ensure the hole is big enough that the plug can fit snugly inside. Now take the syringe and fill it with the correct amount of ink. Put the needle into the hole you drilled and carefully insert the ink into the cartridge.

Gently rub the side of the cartridge over the main ink chamber so the ink can drain into it. Put the plug back in the hole so the ink doesn’t leak out all over.

Step Four: Enjoy

Now you should be ready to go ahead and give it a test run. Put the cartridges back in their respective places in the printer, but before printing anything, go back to your computer and make sure that the printer’s auto-update feature is turned off.

To do this, find the icon for your printer, right-click, and select “software update settings.” Right now, the “check every two weeks” option is probably selected. Uncheck that and switch it to the “never” option instead. You have to do this for every computer connected to this printer, or it will still not be fully disabled.

Your printer should now be good to go. Print as much as you want!