Pro 1 Maintenance tank Up-date.

[mikling]

What about putting some drain holes on the bottom and then just let it drip out onto a pan. Suspend the printer. Line the pan with absorbent material.
An improved solution to this is the following.
A more effective solution would be to add a conductive bridge that can wick ink across. So knowing where the ink exits from the tube, directly underneath that tube, on the bottom of the printer, take a dremel cutter ( you're fine with cutting printers) and cut an opening that leads to the waste ink pad. Place a tray underneath and line it with absorbent material that is easily disposed of. Like baby diapers. Take an old sponge cartridge or cartridges., remove the sponge/s. Stack these sponges so that when the printer sits above the tray, it contacts the internal absorber pad. This way, it will wick the waste ink into the absorber pad underneath. So the sponge bridge will contact the internal absorber pad as well as the external one. So essentially, you've now used a sponge/felt/wicking material rather than a tube to direct the waste ink out out of your printer.
By placing the sponge bridge directly under the exit of the tubes, I bet, you'll be able to stop filling the rest of the internal absorber pads as the saturation level and capillary forces and gravity will help you redirect the waste ink out. You might even possibly dry out the internal absorber pad with this method as well.

If you cut the exit hatch out carefully, you will be able to put it back in and reseal it with araldite or aluminum tape if a new prospective owner of the printer does not want the external pad arrangement.

Hat seeing that you're not afraid of cutting printers up, you might want to test the concept of the frankenstein printer you've created using the cli-8 in place of the 521. I'm pretty sure, that you're up to this. It would just make that printer more freakish.

The same concept can be extended to all other printers and especially to the Pro9500 and other related ones like the pro9000 . Users are free to use this concept for personal enjoyment.

With this method and the Canon service tool, Canon users will have an effective waste ink strategy. So who's going first? Hat, did I see you raise your hand?

If you had an external wet vacuum, I could see opening a hatch and putting the hose against the pad and sucking the ink out as well.

 

[The Hat]

OK Mikling I heard you, and I appreciate your great suggestions,
but I wish the hell all you guys would stop pushing me into doing this.

Its hard enough to resist the temptation to get stuck in straight away,
without getting all of these ingenious ideas handed to me.

Willingness is not the problem here, neither is motivation, I want to tackle the job properly and do it right just the once,and not have ink squirting all around the place while trying to print with clean hands, I still have to dispose of body parts from my last experiments.

I have overhauled a purge system before and cleaned out the waste pads but I prefer to locate the waste ink pipe coming from the purge unit in this printer and divert that to an external waste tank, I have several spare waste tanks from my W6400.

If I fail to locate and re-route the waste pipe then Mikling suggestions (Wicking) looks to be the next viable alternative,by going through the bottom casing, then the waste tank itself. (Nasty Gunk)

I have been working on different ideas for the past two days but havent decided which of them would be best, locating the waste ink pipe is my preferred option but I would drill rather than cut, and dismantling is not an option.

Its like servicing a car even my early inspections so far has had me lying down under the beast to locate the proper entry points, maybe Ill just take to the local Ford dealers and ask for an oil change..

 

[mikling]

Mercedes used to use a suction hose to remove the old oil.......just like the German method. Unfortunately they did not replace it with the same way though.
Oil is always replaced with the top fill method.
To drain the oil, you need to remove the plug at the bottom and remove the top fill plug. Place the external waste oil tank under the opening of the plug. Just like the printer.

 

[The Hat]

OK I decided it was time to bite the bullet and pull the covers off the Pro 1 to see if I could find the waste pipe from the purge unit that leads down to the waste ink cartridge.

On this printer its located in the middle of the carriage way under the platen and to get to it I had to strip the whole front from the printer to find it's location, it took about an hour to gain access.

Once I had the rubber tube disconnected from the centre plastic pipe where it goes down into the waste tank it was then only a matter of finding the easiest pathway to the outside of the printer.

I located a large 10 mm hole in the metal chassis beside the ink supply unit, so using that hole I drilled my 6 mm hole right through the bottom of the outer plastic casing.

I feed the waste pipe out through the hole I had made in the bottom and connected to my newly purchased Printer potty that I gotten from websnail, then feed it around the side of the printer and that was the job done; it only took a few seconds.

Unfortunately when I carefully put all the pieces of the printer together again the darn thing wouldnt power on again, I got one of these stupid fatal errors messages which are not that easy to identify correctly.

I know the exact location of the problem but just cant find the right fix for it just yet,
meanwhile the printer will be out of commission till I come to my senses and sort it out.
One problem sorted out real easy and a whole new one created even easier..

 

[rodbam]

Gawd you are game messing with the pro1 so soon, I would be scared stiff.

 

[The Hat]

Gawd you are game messing with the pro1 so soon, I would be scared stiff.

Im not scared anymore because I got my potty in place to catch any accidents

 

[websnail]

I have to admit I'd similarly be scared stiff by going into such an expensive printer!... But then we're talking about Brian here...

Good luck figuring out what you've broken though...

 

[The Hat]

I have had no joy whatsoever from Canon Services regarding my fatal error on the Pro 1,
nor did I think for one moment that they would know what could have cause this simple error in the first place.

When they started going into detail on when and where I'd bought the printer and how long I had it etc, I knew straight away they were pissing up a rope and they didnt have a clue what could be wrong even dough this error message is described in detail in their own service manual.

It basically states (A) if this error occurs then the RTC battery has probably failed or gone flat and should be replaced immediately,
(B) the wiring is not correctly reconnected properly or damaged,
(C) the flexible flat cable has come loose between the logic and relay board assy.

Most of that is total hog wash because I never went anywhere near any of them,
besides I retraces all of the wiring and rechecked it twice to be sure none of them had accidently come loose.

They want me to ship it back to them so they can diagnose the problem if there is one then charge for new parts to be fitted and ship it back to me or if it cant be fixed (Its a design fault) then dump it, because this has happened before with one of my other printers.

I have worked out the cost of sending this 70 lb monster back to them, add the labour/parts plus courier charge and finally VAT, this will probably end up being two thirds or more the cost of the darn thing in the first place.

This printer has never been my favourite or anywhere near it, so its not a great loss anyway
and I wouldnt buy another even if I was offered one at half price, Ill stick with my 9500.

Question :- Does anyone have any good suggestion on what I can do with this enormous paper weight if I cannot get it to work again; its not something you can just casually drop into a dumpster..

websnail Good luck figuring out what you've broken though...

It wasnt me and you cant prove a thing..

 

[rodbam]

Hat can't you blame the manufacturer of the ink potty & his poor instructions for causing the problem? I think he should pay all the costs.

 

[stratman]

Question :- Does anyone have any good suggestion on what I can do with this enormous paper weight if I cannot get it to work again;
its not something you can just casually drop into a dumpster..

Target practice.