Epson Stylus Pro 9600 Printer

The LCD readout on my Epson 9600 has had the message "Maint Req 0040" for several months now; the paper out lamp also flashes every 3 seconds. That requires servicing the cleaning assy, which is fairly simple to do. Then I started getting ink smears outside of the subject area (on the print head side margin), so I began to seriously think about getting on the ball and servicing the cleaning mechanism on the printer.

Then the lcd readout changed to Maint Req 0042. The 0002 specifies the CR motor (carriage return motor). After much research and almost paying big bucks for a service call, I decided to reset the counter on the CR motor. Apparently Epson built in counters (based on the number of pages printed) on several components (print head, CR Motor, PF motor, cutter, maintenance tank, etc). The component may be capable of performing for several more years. but Epson designed the printer to tell you otherwise.

Anyway, I reset the counter on the CR Motor by going into maintenance 2 mode as follows:

1. Turn off power to printer
2. Power back on while pressing these 3 buttons: Paper source, paper feed down, enter; the LCD will read "View Counters".
3. Press the paper feed down once, or until "Clear counters" shows on the lcd (NEVER EVER RESET COUNTER UNDER INIT ALL-THIS IS TO BE DONE AT THE FACTORY ONLY)
4. Press Selec type, then paper feed until "CR Motor" shows on the lcd
5. Press Selec type - the LCD should read "Exec"
6. Press Enter the CR Motor counter is reset to full life

If you need to back up through the menus, press the paper source.
When finished power off, then power back on.