How to Reset Epson Ink Levels after a Cartridge Refill

Today I’ll be going over how to use a chip resetter. Most Epson printers come with ink cartridges that aren’t designed to be refillable. This is because Epson wants you to keep buying more of their cartridges and giving them more of your money.

There are ways to get around this and refill these “non-refillable” cartridges anyway, but often, when you do this, the printer is unable to recognize or unwilling to accept that the cartridge has been refilled. It will give you a message saying something like, “You need to replace the following cartridges,” and then prevent you from printing. That’s why I felt like I should show you how to reset your Epson printer’s ink levels back to normal.

An Epson printer attempts to keep track of a cartridge’s ink level by tracking the number of pages you have printed with that cartridge. This information is stored in a chip located on the front of the cartridge.

When we refill a cartridge and put it back into the printer, it’s still able to recognize that it’s the same cartridge that you printed all of those pages with and will assume that it’s still empty (as it wasn’t meant to be refilled). Therefore, we will need to reset the page number back to zero each time we refill the cartridge.

Should I Get a Cartridge Chip Resetter?

Getting a chip resetter will allow us to change the number of pages your Epson printer thinks it’s printed with a given cartridge and thus will enable us to print more per cartridge. You’ll need a unique chip resetting tool to do this, though. Fortunately, you can order one from my website, BCHTechnologies.com.

You should consider a few things before ordering one of my ink chip resetters, though. To start with, it will only work with specific printer models; it’s not universal. For example, the EP2 resetter lists compatible models when you go to the product’s page and scroll down a bit. Please ensure your printer’s model number matches the one on the list before ordering. The last thing we want is for you to spend your money on something you won’t even be able to use.

Another thing to note is that the resetter will only work for ink cartridges with at least a little ink left. They can’t be completely empty because once a cartridge is completely depleted, the printer will send it a kill signal. This dead cartridge will no longer be valid and is essentially garbage. However, if you check the ink levels of your cartridges and there’s only a yellow triangle (rather than a red X), that’s only a low ink warning. You should still be able to reset it.

Resetting a Dead Cartridge

As a demonstration, let’s go over what happened when I tried to reset a dead cartridge using the ink chip resetter. First, I waited for my printer to give me the message that the cartridge needed to be replaced. When this message comes up, the cartridge is already dead. I took the dead cartridge out of the printer and put it on the resetter.

The resetter has a built-in guard to help you line up the cartridge with the contact pins and a light to indicate the progress. The light on top of it glowed green, indicating that the page number had been reset successfully. It may have reset the page counter to zero, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the cartridge will work.

When putting the cartridge back into the printer, it still receives a signal that the cartridge is dead. Upon resetting the dead cartridge, putting it back in the printer, and closing the lid, I received the message that I needed to replace it again. No progress was made.

Now we’ll learn how to work on a cartridge that isn’t dead yet but has a low ink level. Again, this will be shown by a yellow triangle on the bar associated with the low cartridge when you check the ink levels. One thing that is absolutely vital to remember is that you always, no matter what, need to use the printer’s cartridge replacement function before removing the cartridge from the printer.

After you take the low-ink cartridge out:

1. Put it on the resetter so that the contact pins line up.
2. Wait for the light on top to start glowing green, and then the page counter has officially been reset back to zero.
3. Reinsert the cartridge back into the printer and close the door.
4. Wait for the printer to finish checking the cartridges.

Pop-up Message #1

You’ll probably receive a series of pop-up messages starting with the following:

“You have not installed genuine Epson cartridges.”

You have, in fact, installed genuine Epson cartridges, but you’ve reset it, and Epson is mad about that. They want you to buy more cartridges so they can have your money instead of reusing the ones that they give you. That means they’re going to try to scare you into thinking something is wrong.

Pop-up Message #2

If you click proceed, you’ll go on to receive the second pop-up message.

“The quality or reliability of non-genuine ink cannot be guaranteed, and it may cause damage to your product not covered by Epson’s warranty…” It goes on and on, but essentially, they’re trying to say that they noticed you’re trying to save money, and they’re pretty unhappy about that.

Pop-up Message #3

You’ll get a third pop-up message if you click proceed on that one that asks if you want to continue to use that ink. Click yes. If you check the ink levels now, the bar for the one you reset should be completely filled.

Note About Refillable Cartridges

If you have an ink cartridge intended to be refilled, it comes with a different chip, and this resetter won’t work on it. The resetter is only designed to work with one-time-use chips. This will either be in the default Epson cartridges or a one-time use third-party cartridge.

The chips in refillable cartridges have a different built-in resetting function. They rely on that kill signal from the printer as an alert to tell it when the chip should be reset. If it doesn’t receive that signal, which our ink chip resetter would prevent, it won’t do anything and won’t recognize that it needs to reset the cartridge’s ink level.

As a side note, I mentioned that third-party cartridges will also work with our ink chip resetter. This is true, but because their contact pins are a bit different than the ones in Epson cartridges (mainly, they tend to be a bit wider), it will be harder to get them to line up correctly.

URLs:

0:15- Why to reset ink levels

0:49- Supplies

2:12- Dead Cartridge

4:01- Error Message(s)

5:40- ERC Cartridge