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Ink maintenance tank from 9600Maintenance tank in Epson large format printers

Where does that waste ink go?

Epson maintenance tanks. The other day, the maintenance tank on my Epson Stylus Pro 9600 flashed up as full on the front panel.

Reset the Maintenance tank counter?

You can reset the waste ink counters (see below) or replace the part.

Fortunately I had a spare Ink Maintenance Tank (Part Number C12C890071)

It's the same tank as used in the SP 7600

Note the chip on the side.

You can reset this to get a bit more use out of the unit, but I've heard reports that doing this can corrupt the data chips on the (much more expensive) ink cartridges.

As I took out the old one I noticed how much heavier it was than the replacement.

The old one was 804gms and the new one 373gms.

Here is the old maintenance tank...

Ink maintenance tank from 9600

That's 431gms or just under a pound of ink. If you assume that there is not a lot of evaporation from inside the printer, that's ~440ml of ink or two full 220ml ink carts.

Fortunately, when I changed from Photo to Matt Black I used the technique that doesn't waste the usual ~200ml of ink: 7600/9600 black ink swap procedure

...Just thought you might be curious as to what a hundred pounds worth of waste ink looks like :-)

Tank is used in the following

I've not seen the new tank (C12C890191) from the 9800 yet

Resetting your maintenance tank

The information below is from various newsgroups, so use it with care.

Very useful if the tank runs out over the weekend and you don't have a spare. Do remember to replace it eventually since it will overflow and make a lot of mess!

We have a page of more general 7600/9600 tips and fixes which includes a PDF service manual

7600 - 9600 Maintenance tank reset

I was sent this reset procedure for Epson Stylus Pro 9600 (and 7600)

Stylus Pro 4000 Maintenance tank reset

The maintenance reset procedure for Epson Stylus Pro 4000 is slightly different from that described above.

Resetting the 9800 and 7800 maintenance tank

If you have a 9600/7600 available, it seems that you can put the newer tanks into the older type printer and use the reset procedure above.

I've not seen it done though...

It also seems that you can use a 'chip resetter' (much like you would for refilling cartridges)

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The views in this article represent those of Keith Cooper. Keith is always happy to discuss matters raised in his articles. You can Email Us Email Us
Northlight Images prides itself on its independence when giving advice. We do not sell hardware or software and have no direct commercial links with any of the software or hardware vendors that may be mentioned here. See our Review Policy for more information.

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