Your printer tells you. It shows a warning as the maintenance box approaches full, and then stops printing altogether until a new one is fitted — unlike ink, you cannot carry on past the limit. That is why it is worth keeping a spare: a full box takes a working printer offline until one arrives, and this is one of the cheapest parts on the machine.

Yes — one part, three codes. T04D1 is what Epson prints on the box itself, C13T04D100 is the retail order code, and C13T04D198 is an alternate pack code. Whichever your printer display, invoice or supplier quotes, this is the item. If you have been given a different code entirely, send it to us and we will check it against your model.

It fits most EcoTank, Expression Home and WorkForce machines — including the L4150 to L4366, the whole L6000 range, L11050 and L14150, the mono M series, ET-2700 through ET-15000, XP-5100 to XP-5205 and WF-2860 to WF-2965. Every model is listed under the Compatible Printers tab above. If yours is not on the list, send us the model number and our UAE team will confirm before you order.

No. Every Epson inkjet flushes a small amount of ink through the print head to keep the nozzles clear, and that ink has to go somewhere. The box filling is normal wear, exactly like a waste toner bottle on a laser printer. How quickly it fills depends on how often the printer runs a cleaning cycle, which is why a machine used in short bursts gets through them faster than one printing steadily.

Emptying is not an option — the box holds absorbed waste ink in a sealed pad and is designed to be replaced. Third-party boxes are a false economy: the chip is what tells the printer the box is fresh, and non-genuine chips are the common cause of a printer rejecting a newly fitted box. This is a genuine Epson unit sourced through official channels, with a VAT invoice included.