Yesterday, my trusty Epson R1800 started popping up a message that Parts in my printer have reached their expected life!

(Services will be held Qimage Quarry at midnight)

Seriously, I was upset. Not only do I love this printer, but it could be a while before I could replace it.

I poked around on the internet, and got a "reading" that the message was generated by Epson when a certain number of prints have passed through, (although they couple that with "and your overflow pads are full",) so  do I really have to toss the printer, or even replace the pads?

Found a great utility (Freeware) that **WORKS* and reset the counter..... Viola! All is well again.
This utility works a large number of Epson models, so here's the URL for the download. 
Might be a handy thing to have around!

http://www.ssclg.com/epsone.shtml

Fred

Thanks Ray,
I do vaguely remember you advising me of that program... but didn't need it at the time, so in one ear and out the other.
Getting old!!
Fred

Yes, the message is caused by the waste pad counter hitting a limit and that utility will reset the counter.  I've done this on my R1800 as well.  However, I would not wait until getting the message again before doing something about it. By that time, the pads may really be overflowing and you'll have a nasty mess to clean up.  Instead, I'd suggest adding an ink waste bottle.  This requires removing the side panel and attaching two tubes that will divert the purged ink from the pads to an external bottle that can be easily emptied.  This is not difficult to install and I think it's easier than replacing the pads later on.  The only depressing thing is that you can now see how much ink is wasted.

You can get a kit like:

http://www.inkrepublic.com/WasteInkKit.asp

Here you can see the work involved:

http://www.inkrepublic.com/KnowledgeBase/R2400WasteInk.asp

There are other videos about waste bottle installation floating around the net.  The kit isn't expensive, but you can also just get some tubing of the proper diameter and a plastic bottle.

And for those who'd rather wait for the movie to come out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXkashbJDf8

I found this most helpful.