The fun stuff…. resetting the purge counter on the MFC-J995DW!
Note that since I hadn’t actually hit the purge count limit, I can’t verify that this “for sure” solves the error message. The only thing I can verify is that it reset the counter to 0 on the display.
First, a couple cautionary notes:
- The maintenance menu lets you access a LOT of things you probably don’t want to be messing with. It’s possible to accidentally mis-set an item and muck up your printer. Be very cautious and deliberate when in the menu. If you end up somewhere you shouldn’t or hit the wrong key, there is usually a “Stop” button when you’re in the maintenance menu that will get you out. If the furthest back that the “Stop” button gets you to is back to the maintenance menu menu itself, “99” is the exit code from there that should exit and restart the printer.
- If the ink absorber pad actually IS saturated and you reset the message without dealing with the physical problem first, you could end up with a variety of consequences (spilled ink mess, print head takes a bath in all the colors at once, etc).
Obviously you’re doing this at your own risk. We’re assuming your printer is totally dead and refuses to print right now anyway.
Okay, here we go! Click/tap for larger images. You can probably skip the text since I added text to the images, but I’ve typed stuff out too in case an image doesn’t load or something is unclear. Again, be cautious when muddling around in the menu system.
First steps seen above are to press and hold the home button for 10 seconds. Then once the new screen comes up, press and hold the blank space on the touch screen for 5-10 seconds, then let go.
The screen will change as soon as you let go:
As seen above, you’ll get a keypad. Type:
*2864(don’t forget to start with an asterisk: * )
…new text will show up on the screen.
It should now say MAINTENANCE at the top. Now you press:
80The word MAINTENANCE should now change to ERROR CODE as seen next:
At this point, we’re technically in a menu we can scroll down (ERROR CODE is the first option). We need to change the keypad to arrow keys which will let us navigate the menu. Press the “>>” button in the bottom right as shown. You’ll have to do it twice to get to the proper keypad with our navigation arrows.
You can see the proper keypad (which has up/down/left/right buttons) below:
Once at the keypad seen above, press DOWN a whole bunch of times (highlighted above). You want to keep going until you get to the setting called PURGE COUNT. When I did this I had to hit DOWN 16 times to get to PURGE COUNT, but this could change with various model revisions or firmware updates.
Next step…
Look at the image above… here we press the RIGHT-ARROW button along the TOP row. Instead of PURGE COUNT it should now say PURGE: ######## (some number).
Now that we’re here, we have to enter some digits again which requires changing the keypad back to numbers. So press the “>>” key to get to the number pad again.
Here in Step 8 we type the following:
2783Instead of something like PURGE: 0023813 it should now say PURGE: 000000.
We’re done, except that we have to exit.
Press the STOP button. This should get you back to the menu that says MAINTENANCE at the top.
From the MAINTENANCE menu, type:
99It should exit the menu and the printer should restart.
Hopefully no more ink pad message!
Thank you,
KB
Tnx a lot for your effort!!!
God Bless YOU!
Didn't expect it from BROTHER :(
Maybe I can make this printer last forever. LOL
Charlee
On my MFC-J5945DW, the counter did not reset to 0 but to 1009, and the printer is still locked with the ink absorber full message.
Any idea why ?
The absorber box is filled by the maintenance unit which suctions ink and airbubbles through the print head and tubes that are connected with the cartridges. That is why the absorber boxes are connected to two tubes (waste ink and air vent).
The flushing box is filled directly by the print head. Ink drops "fall" in the flushing box as if the printer prints on a paper without suction.