What is protection counter?
Aug 7th
If your printer is not working anymore and you see the blinking red lights, most probably you have waste pad problem.
To confirm if you have this problem, you can installed status monitor program (come with your printer purchase), it will show an error message like “Parts inside your printer at the end of their service life, contact your dealer for replacement”.
“Why do I get this problem?” you may ask. Simple answer, it’s by design.
The printer has to make sure that it can print smoothly without any missing white line, so sometimes the printer perform the head cleaning. When the printer performs the head cleaning, it flush the ink into a waste pad.
There is some container at the bottom of your printer that has a big sponge to absorb these ink. Of course, the sponge has a limited capasity to absorb the ink. If this situation happen, the ink start to leak from your printer and trust me you don’t like this situation. It’s really disaster.
How to prevent that? Fortunately, the manufacturer aware of this and introduce the concept of “protection counter”.
The printer will “count” the amount of ink flows to waste pad everytime you perform head cleaning. Once the counter reach the maximum value, the printer stop to print anymore. Depends on the printer model, some printers button will blink alternately (red and green). Modern printer display the error message in the lcd panel showing that some parts of your printer has reach its life span. Why it’s happen? It’s to protect you from the disaster that I mentioned above. The manufacture has done a good job, what do you think? 
From my experience, the sponge has not saturated yet. I think the manufacture doesn’t want to take risk to give you a disaster, so they prevent the printer to print anymore earlier than it should. Again for your own good.
What you can do now? You only have 2 options here. First, buy a new printer, second is to fix it.
If you buy a new printer, please consider not to buy the “entry level” printer such as Epson Stylus C45, CX1500 unless you seldom print or feel suit your need. Based on my experience, the printer mentioned above has a limited area for waste pad due to the printer size.
If you want to fix it, quick solution is to reset the protection counter. Some printers have this feature build in such as Epson Stylus Photo R300/R310, RX510, etc. What you need to do is to press some combination of the available buttons and the printer will reset the protection counter by itself.
If your printer is still under warranty, bring it to the service centre. They will change the sponge and reset the protection counter for you.
Alternatively, you can try to reset it by using the software, SSC Service Utility for Epson Stylus Printer. Click here to download. Read their disclaimer, some printers may not working at all.
There are some risks if you use this software to reset the protection counter
The sponge is supposed to be changed because it will not absorb the ink anymore.
Use this software may void the printer warranty
Please remember that you should change/clean your waste pad before you reset the protection counter. It prevents you a disaster.
Why using syringe is the best way to refill a cartridge?
Jul 26th
Peoples always ask me, why using syringe is a better approach when you refill a cartridge.
Simple reason, you take control. Let me explain.
When your printer “declare” the cartridge is empty, actually it is not totally empty. The printer “estimate” the ink level by calculating the ink consumed during printing. So, when you want to refill the cartridge, how do you know how much ink that you need to put into the cartridge?
The best practise of refilling cartridge is not to refill too much. This is one of the rules that I mentioned in Best practise of refilling cartridge page. If you refill too much, the ink inside the cartridge give the pressure to the print-head and you may get ink “blob” in your printout.
By using syringe, you control how much ink that you need to inject into the cartridge. Most HP cartridges inform you how much the ink contents inside the cartridge at their label, so you can inject up to the amount of ink mentioned in the label. Once again, don’t refill too much. You have to stop injecting the ink when you see the ink come out from the refill hole (suck a bit if necessary).
Some refill kit manufacturers don’t like to use syringe in their product for packaging reason. The syringe make the refill kit bulky, taken too much space in their packaging and less attractive appearance, etc.
What is air bubble?
May 12th
When you shake the cartridge, it may form air bubbles inside the cartridge.
Does it harms? It depends. The most critical is not to have air bubbles in the print head. Popular terms is air bubble trap. When you shake the cartridge, the air bubbles will form in the sponge. If this happen, just leave the cartridge overnight, the air bubble will goes up eventually.
If the print head have air bubbles then the quick solution is to perform head cleaning (instructed from your computer). The head cleaning is like flushing the ink into tiny hole inside the print-head. Of course, this will reduce some of ink in your cartridge.
If you can wait, don’t force it. Leave it overnight. Let the air bubble release themselves. If the problem still persists then you need to perform head cleaning.
Reset ink level for HP C6657A (HP57)
Mar 9th
Last month’s post, I have shown to you on how to reset ink level for HP 56 and HP 58. Today, I will show you on how to reset ink level for HP C6657A or HP 57.
Note: These procedure may not work for some printers. The printer simply refuse to print alignment page when you cover the contact with tape.
Put tape over Contact #1 as shown in the first picture above.
Put the cartridge back into the printer with the tape fixed on the cartridge.
The printer will print an alignment page. Once this has completed, continue with Step 3. If the printer does not print the alignment page then this procedure will not work for your printer.
After the printer has completed printing of the alignment page, open the cover, remove the cartridge and place a piece of tape over Contact #2 as shown in the second picture on the left.
Put the cartridge back into the printer. The printer will print another alignment page.
After this page has been printed, remove the cartridge from the printer, remove all tape from both Contact #1 and #2.
Reinsert the cartridge back into the printer. Ink levels should read full now.
If the process does not work for you, make sure that no adhesive left stuck on the contacts of the cartridge. Any residue may cause the cartridge not to be recognized by the printer at all.
If you have cleaned the contacts with rubbing alcohol, go through steps 1-4 again, make sure each step is followed exactly.
Please help us to give your comments if these procedure work for your printer.
Reset ink level for HP C6656A (HP56) or C6658A (HP58)
Feb 9th
When you have refilled your cartridge, your job have not fully completed yet. Some printers fail to work and claim that your cartridge is still empty, even though it’s full after you refill the cartridge.
The printer has its memory and remember the last cartridge you use. There are two ways to overcome this problem. First is to reset the ink level of the cartridge as shown below, second is to use 2 spare cartridges. Note: These procedure may not work for some printers. The printer simply refuse to print alignment page when you cover the contact with tape.
 
- Put tape over Contact #1 as shown in the first picture above.
Put the cartridge back into the printer with the tape fixed on the cartridge. - The printer will print an alignment page. Once this has completed, continue with Step 3. If the printer does not print the alignment page then this procedure will not work for your printer.
- After the printer has completed printing of the alignment page, open the cover, remove the cartridge and place a piece of tape over Contact #2 as shown in the second picture on the left.
- Put the cartridge back into the printer. The printer will print another alignment page.
After this page has been printed, remove the cartridge from the printer, remove all tape from both Contact #1 and #2.
Reinsert the cartridge back into the printer. Ink levels should read full now. - If the process does not work for you, make sure that no adhesive left stuck on the contacts of the cartridge. Any residue may cause the cartridge not to be recognized by the printer at all.
If you have cleaned the contacts with rubbing alcohol, go through steps 1-4 again, make sure each step is followed exactly.
Please help us to give your comments if these procedure work for your printer
Refilling cartridge HP C6656A (HP 56)
Jan 5th
Frankly speaking, this is the easiest cartridge to refill compare to the old generation of HP cartridges such as HP 51626A (HP 26) or HP 51645A (HP 45). The cartridge use sponge to hold the ink and then covered by HP OEM (original) sticker to cover the refill hole.
The refilling process is straight forward, it will take not more than 20 minutes if you refill for the first time and less than 10 minutes if you have more experience. Feel free to learn refilling the cartridge in this guide and get more information about troubleshooting when the problems arise.
Printers that use this cartridge
Deskjet Series: Deskjet 450, 3325, 3420, 3535, 3550, 3650, 5160, 5550, 5652
PhotoSmart Series: PhotoSmart 130, 7150, 7260, 7550, 7660, 7960
PSC Series: PSC 1110, 1210, 1350, 2110, 2210, 2310, 2410
OfficeJet: OfficeJet 4110, 5510, 6110Â
Refill Instruction for HP C6656A (HP 56), Black Ink Cartridge
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Step 1 – Putting cartridge into refill clipInsert the printhead part (nozzle) of the cartridge into the refill clip, and push the top of the cartridge all the way in until you hear it clicking into place. |
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Step 2 – Putting sticker on top of the original stickerAttach the supplied sticker on the label of the original cartridge as shown in the figure.Warning: Be careful to attach the sticker in the right shape and direction. |
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Step 3 – Putting needle into the syringeOpen the cap of the ink container and connect the needle. |
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Step 4 – Insert the needleInsert the needle deep into the ink injection inlet marked on the sticker. Note: Make sure the refill hole is bigger than refill hole to allow air inside the cartridge to escape. |
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Step 5 – Inject the inkPull up the injection needle about 5mm backward, and then inject SLOWLY (max 10ml) of ink by pressing the piston of the syringe for about 15 seconds, and then pull out the ink container. Warning: If you inject ink too much or too quickly, it may flow over or leak out. |
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Step 6 – Suck the ink about 1 mlPut a suction syringe (WITHOUT needle) to the rubber hole at the bottom of refill clip, then suck SLOWLY about 1 ml of ink. Warning: For this step, remember to use the suction syringe without the needle and take special care that widthdrawn ink does not flow back into the cartridge. Note: The objective of this procedure is to clean the cartridge nozzle to improve printing quality. |
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Step 7 – Cartridge is ready for useRemove the cartridge from the refill clip and clean the excessive ink around the nozzle by touching down to the soft tissue. Install the cartridge into printer and run the “cartridge cleaning” process before use. Note: Don’t cover the refill hole, leave it open. Â |
That’s all, hope this instruction help you to save your printing cost.
