Reset the Epson L355 ink pad counter to extend end of service life

After using the Epson L355 printer for a few years, you would inevitably get the “ink pad is at the end of its service life” error. You know this when the printer’s error and paper red LED blinks one after the other. You can also confirm this by opening up the Epson Printer Utility from and see the error message there.

Rightfully, you should bring the printer to the nearest Epson service center and get them to replace the waste ink pad which is likely to be “full” and no longer optimal in collecting waste ink that the printer generates.

However, sometimes you might just want to extend the life of the printer till it just breaks down. After all, the cost of the servicing is unlikely cheap and is hardly justifiable when the cost of a new printer is generally pretty low. Alternatively, you can also attempt to DIY the waste ink pad replacements. All you need is to get the replacement ink pads such as this one below and replace the old ones from the printer.

Reseting the L355 ink pad counter on the printer

As I’m waiting for the replacement ink pads to arrive, I wanted to still be able to print from my printer. And to do so, I found this Epson Adjustment Program utility on this site here that does the job perfectly. If you want a direct download link to the utility, I’m mirroring it on dropbox as well. This utility however works only on Windows and would require you to connect the printer via USB cable to the Windows PC. I’ve tested that this utility works also on Windows 10.

The utility is pretty simple to use. When you open it, you should see the program as per the screenshot below.

The first thing you would do is to select your printer that you want to reset the ink pad counter. Click on the Select button, select the necessary and click OK to continue.

When the printer is selected, you should see the right model and its port displayed correctly. In my case, it is the L355 model, connected over USB port.

Next, click on the Particular adjustment mode button and then look for the Waste ink pad counter, select it and click again on the OK button.

To reset the L355 ink pad counter, click in the Main pad counter check box to select it and then click on the Initialization button. Thus would start the process of resetting the ink pad counter to zero. The process should be instant and you should immediately see a dialog box popping up. Click on the OK button to complete the initialization process.

You would then be asked to turn off the printer. Turn it off and then press the OK button to continue.

That’s it! To check, you can turn on the printer and once its on, click on the Check button and you should see the counter to be 0 point.

Update: Here’s a step by step instructions to DIY the Epson L355 ink pad replacement. It is really easy.