Waste ink Reservoir

Do all Epson inkjets deal with waste ink this way?

All desktop printers do exactly the same with their waste ink, out of sight out of mind till it get full.

Your method of dealing with the waste ink has some risk attached to it because you’ll end up with back flow problems which will bung up the purge unit and cover the bottom of the print head with waste ink.

Try lowering the outlet tube down by standing the waste collector bottle on its side for a more levelled and smoother out flow..

Sorry. Not my video.

I agree that gravity is your best friend for waste ink.

Did you see my post about Brother waste ink frustration, etc?

They use a purge tank, a pump, and a sponge tank.

Each at opposite sides of the printer and a pump to transfer.

Can't inspect them, too complicated, no easy fix or mod like for the Epson video.

I am looking to buy a 4 color Epson like the WF3520.

I plan to buy transparent refillable cartridges and fill them with generic dye ink. (dye OK?)

My Brother uses Chinese extended cartridges that contain a swimming pool quantity of ink.

If I can unblock the Brother heads, I will go slower in acquiring the Epson.

BTW I use very hot water and a homemade syringe tube to flush the Brother.

What is the largest capacity refillable cartridge for the WF 3520?

Thanks!

BOYNTONSTU said:

Do all Epson inkjets deal with waste ink this way?

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Actually, just to correct on a specific set of printers coming out now... There are some such as the Workforce 3000 (more recent series) and the Workforce Pro 4000 series (+ a few others) that have a replaceable maintenance tank with a chip that is basically an overpriced nappy. The premise is the same though... waste ink gets dumped to a nappy somewhere and the ink counter is either controlled within the printer firmware or on the maintenance box chip.

As for the Brother printer side of things, there are a few customers my end who have retrofitted a Printer Potty to their Brother printer using their own technical knowledge (read: masochistic tendancies ) and a service manual (if available) to take the thing apart.

We've not jumped into Brothers directly as yet but the feedback and information we've had from the DIY users has been that it is possible to use a double tube system to redirect the waste. The trick is getting to the waste tubes themselves to be able to hook up an external kit.


If you're wanting some input on the whole thing then drop me a Private message and I'll see what I can do.

I wonder if the Brother purge tank could be drained from below by drilling a hole and attaching a hose?

What is the largest capacity Epson WF3520 cartridge?

BOYNTONSTU said:

I wonder if the Brother purge tank could be drained from below by drilling a hole and attaching a hose?

Click to expand...

No idea. You'd need a service manual to figure out where the pads are and where the electronics/workings are so you didn't drill through the wrong area or find it's not possible.

What is the largest capacity Epson WF3520 cartridge?

Click to expand...

If you mean the maintenance box then it's a standard kit... Basically plastic box, absorbent padding and an expensive chip.

I would like to fit an external waste ink bottle to my brother printer too. I can't find any service manuals for MFC-5895CW

This video is interesting for brother users
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_q39t-ggUs



A - place where print head sprays it's nozzles
B - purge container
C - main purge container

Somehow these container seem very small to me, also for some reason I have to manually clean the print heads cleaning marked "A" thing after every 500 sheets A4 photos. Else the inks puddles there and print heads gets dirty. Anyone else with same problem?

BOYNTONSTU said:

I wonder if the Brother purge tank could be drained from below by drilling a hole and attaching a hose?

What is the largest capacity Epson WF3520 cartridge?

Click to expand...

Often the best approach when dealing with waste ink is the slow thinking way and not just going in half-cocked with a drill in your hands, you may end up with more than just waste ink on your face, table, floor etc. etc..

Edit:
Just looking at that video link provided by @Smile that should be very helpful to you guys that want to fit an external waste tank to your brother printers.

Stop the video at about 5.59 and examine the area around the internal waste tubing and measure that very carefully to determine where to cut the side cover on your printer.

Use a dremel tool and cut out about 5 x 5 cm area, this will give you more than enough space to work with and you can then remove the tubing and bring it out the hole to your new waste ink tank.

The beauty of this video is you now don’t have to take your printer apart to find the waste outlet so the job become extremely easier to do..

Smile said:

I would like to fit an external waste ink bottle to my brother printer too. I can't find any service manuals for MFC-5895CW

Click to expand...

I've noticed that a lot of the designs for Brother printers seem to follow a reasonably standard pattern for multiple printers so you may want to cast around for other models that look similar, to build a shortlist, then look for service manuals for those.

@Smile : I have a couple of service manuals I can dig out for other models that may or may not help if you want to PM me with an email address