Epson EcoTank Waste Counter Utility

A small, safe‑ish shell utility to inspect and reset Epson EcoTank “waste ink pad” counters using the open‑source reinkpy project.

Why this exists: our office Epson EcoTank ET-1810 reported “waste tank full”, but the physical pad/tank was almost empty and the vendor tools didn’t offer a reset. With reinkpy’s open tooling we can read counters, keep backups, and reset the timers — similar to paid tools, but free and auditable.

Important warning: this is experimental. Use at your own risk. Always make snapshots before modifying device state, and ensure your pads are not physically saturated.

Quick Start

• Install and bootstrap (creates venv, installs deps, probes status):

  ./install.sh

• Read status (detects printer, logs details, saves a snapshot). Default output is a concise normalized summary:

  ./epson.sh status

  Show full per-address details:

  ./epson.sh status --details

  Show ambiguous counters and write CSV snapshot:

  ./epson.sh status --show-ambiguous
  ./epson.sh status --csv                      # writes snapshots/COUNTERS_<stamp>.csv
  ./epson.sh status --csv=snapshots/my.csv     # custom path

• Reset waste counters (auto-detected addresses; will prompt):

  ./epson.sh reset --auto

• Reset waste counters manually (no --auto; example ET-series slots):

./epson.sh reset --addresses 0x2f,0x30,0x31,0x32,0x33,0x34,0x35,0x36,0x37 --yes

Notes:

• macOS: USB access for status/reset typically REQUIRES sudo. The tool auto-retries with sudo on permission errors and hides low-level tracebacks. You can also run directly with sudo ./epson.sh status or sudo ./epson.sh reset ... to avoid prompts.
• Quiet by default: INFO logs from reinkpy are suppressed; user-facing output is concise. Use logs/ for detailed diagnostics.
• Multiple devices: if more than one Epson USB device is found, you'll be prompted to select which one.
• Logs live in logs/ and snapshots in snapshots/.
• If CSV is written while the script elevates to sudo, the CSV file may be owned by root. You can fix ownership with:

  sudo chown "$USER" snapshots/COUNTERS_<stamp>.csv

Credits

• Built on top of the excellent open-source reinkpy by @atufi.
• Community discussions (example ET-series reset set): Reddit thread “Epson Ecotank ... reset totally free”.

Features

• Auto-bootstrap virtualenv and install reinkpy (PyPI or fallback to Codeberg source).
• macOS: Homebrew/libusb hints and installation.
• Linux: libusb presence hint and udev guidance for Epson VID 04B8.
• Robust logging with daily logs, per-run status/reset logs.
• EEPROM dump if supported; textual state snapshot otherwise.
• Human-readable grouping of waste/platen counters using model specs.
• Neutral Counter 1/2/3 labeling for ET-181x family (default output shows normalized percentages).
• Optional display of ambiguous "Waste counters (?)" via --show-ambiguous.
• CSV export of per-address readings via --csv[=PATH].
• Quiet output by default (suppresses INFO-level logs and hides Python tracebacks). Use logs for deep debugging.
• Interactive device selection if multiple printers are connected.

Prerequisites

macOS

• Homebrew recommended. If missing, scripts print a hint.
• Ensure libusb: brew list libusb || brew install libusb.

Linux

• Ensure libusb (sudo apt-get install -y libusb-1.0-0 or equivalent for your distro).
• If running as non-root, you may need a udev rule for Epson VID 04B8 to allow USB access. Example rule (save as /etc/udev/rules.d/99-epson.rules):

  SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="04b8", MODE="0666"
  

  Then reload rules: sudo udevadm control --reload-rules && sudo udevadm trigger.

Counter mapping (ET‑1810)

When running ./epson.sh status, ET‑1810 models label groups as neutral counters and display normalized percentages by default:

• Counter 1 → addresses [0x30,0x31]
• Counter 2 → addresses [0x32,0x33]
• Counter 3 → addresses [0xFC,0xFD]

You can show the spec's ambiguous set with --show-ambiguous to aid diagnostics:

• Ambiguous group: [0x1C,0x34,0x35,0x36,0x37,0xFF] (0x34/0x35 often mirror 0x30/0x31).

CSV rows contain: model,group_label,group_type,addr,value_hex,percent_255,group_sum,normalized_percent,group_max_percent.

Structure

.
├── epson.sh              # Single entrypoint: status/reset
├── install.sh            # One-shot bootstrap (chmod, hints, first probe)
├── Makefile              # Optional convenience targets
├── .env/                 # Python virtualenv (auto-created)
├── logs/                 # Logs with timestamps
├── snapshots/            # EEPROM/state backups
├── scripts/
│   ├── common.sh         # Shared helpers (venv, logging, help dump)
│   ├── epson_status.sh   # Device detect, status, snapshot
│   └── epson_reset.sh    # Reset counters (auto/manual)
├── vendor/               # reinkpy source if PyPI unavailable
├── .gitignore
└── README.md