Make a Refillable WF 3720 Printer - Epson as Document, Photo, or Sublimation Printer

In this blog, we will discuss how to refill the Epson WF 3720 printer. The first thing we need to do is work on the ink monitor. This does not display the actual ink level – instead, it functions more as a counter that tracks the number of pages you’ve printed. With this system, even if you have a full tank of ink, it will still tell you that there’s no ink.

You may have heard of chipless solutions, which essentially turn the printer chip off and show a full tank of ink at all times. You can download chipless firmware from several places, but BCH Technologies recommends inkchip.net. INKCHIP’s solutions are virus-free, affordable, and come with excellent customer support. For this demonstration, we will be using an INKCHIP download.

Downloading The Firmware

Click on the “soft” tab at the top of the INKCHIP homepage. Scroll down, find your printer model, and click “download” under the firmware volume. Note: the downloadable file will be in RAR format, and BCH suggests using 7-zip to unzip it.

Plug your printer into your computer with a USB because you can’t do this wirelessly. Start your printer as you normally would, not in firmware update mode. You should see a “new version” status pop up. The next step will take a while, so feel free to step away from the printer and do something else while the firmware is updating.

Once the download is complete, you will see that the printer is still asking for a cartridge. Don’t worry – this just means that the printer has restarted. Now you can shut down the program even though it says it’s still running on your computer. Just ignore that warning and shut it down.

Now that you’ve finished downloading, return to INKCHIP and download the activation key. Find your printer model, add the key to your cart, and check out. Fire up the activation program and see if it’s working. Click the “activate online” button and enter the key code. The second box that pops up should give you a recovery code. Open up a text file and save this recovery code for future use.

Restart your printer and check the ink supply level. You will see that it is full, even if you don’t have a cartridge inserted.

Modifying The Cartridge

The next step is to drill a hole in the cartridge that will allow you to inject ink into it. To do this, you will need adrill, a couple of plugs, and some syringes and needles.

Take one of the syringes and cut the tip at an angle. Use this syringe to draw the waste ink from each cartridge. However, you only need to do this with really old cartridges, or if switching the ink type – for example, going from pigment to sublimation ink.

For XL cartridges, you’ll have to drill through three layers. Add some distilled water to the ink tank. But again, this is only necessary if you’re changing the ink type. Plug the hole and use the modified syringe to suck the water out of the cartridge. You may want to repeat this process a few times until the water coming out is clear. Finally, it’s time to refill the cartridge with ink. To determine whether or not the cartridge is empty, you can check the little window on the bottom.

For regular cartridges, you should drill near the middle of the label. There are three layers, so it’s pretty deep. Also, you don’t have to use a 702 anymore, because this printer doesn’t care what cartridge you use.

Wrapping Up

And that’s just about all you need to know to refill this printer. If you get stuck with the wrong ID code on the activation step, it likely means that you did not update the firmware in normal mode – you instead updated it in firmware update mode. If that is the case, look for a version number and code discrepancy. You will need to look for firmware that can update in normal mode.

Hopefully, you enjoyed this blog. Visit us atbchtechnologies.com, or locally at our Greensboro, North Carolina location. Cheers and happy printing!