Epson WF-4830 ink issues

The firmware issue is a different one then the clogged heads - follow the post you linked for instructions on that -- your best bet to find the old firmware is archive.org or sites where the files get preserved so there is a perpetual repository for downgrades. Epson tracks the chip ID and stores it in memory, and blocks known spoofed ones via firmware updates. You can still find the firmware here: https://ftp.epson.com/drivers/FWCJ05TL_S...

***Download it and save it as Epson will eventually pull it!!! Change it to .dmg for Macs. Drive archive: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1...

That said for the clogged head... Epson cleaning doesn't do much once the clog progresses beyond a nuisance, and the power flush is a guaranteed way to kill a waste ink pad. That one has a chipped pad, so it's not as bad, but if it also fills the borderless pads, those are non-serviceable and part of the platen, with no known reset method outside of sending it to Epson or obtaining a copy of the Epson adjustment tool, not a third-party one.

These printers use a spiked printhead, so you can use the traditional cleaning kits that many vendors sell on Amazon. However, I prefer the InkjetMall PiezoFlush kit these days. Due to the way the Epson firmware works, third-party refillables are unusable because they track based on chip ID. Even if the chip self-resets, the printer will reject it based on the ID :-(. EU/ROW printers do not have this problem but they also have regionalization based on the chip number and model printers (Ex, US/CAN NA printers use models like WF/ET/Expression Premium, ROW is usually L). You are usually better off getting four syringes, some vinyl tubing, and then forcing it through the head and letting it sit for 24 hours before printing again. You DO need to run a light printhead cleaning after purging the printhead to get the fluid out, but it's far less wasteful than the power flush Epson loves to push because it sells ink and waste ink pads.

As much as I want to throw the cart-based models out a window and put Tannerite in them due to the firmware poisoning, the Superank models are better in the sense that they lack chips, clone ink tracking*, and run thousands of pages, not hundreds. I would recycle something like this 4830 if you asked me to dispose of it because of the firmware lockdown, but would clean an ET-8550 given the borderless pads were good and low use.

*Epson does stain the lines with clone ink bottles but they can't do it any other way. One could hide it more easily by swapping the ink carrier out and Epson is none the wiser.