My MAXIFY 5350 is on refill ink

Had I not bought a Maxify printer, I wouldn’t have believed that Canon were capable of making such a great around printer, it’s so reliable and Refiller friendly, and you never have to do anything too it..
I much agree with @palombian, dye ink printers are far more troublesome than pigment printers...

Canon ratings of life expectancy of their printers seem very inconsistent. 30000 pages/month is quite a lot even for sturdy office machines.
Instead, if we believe the service manual, a tough little printer like the IP3000 is expected to last only a total of 6000 pages or 3 years ( one of my IP3000s has reached already 48k).

We can only hope that somebody comes along with a method to put the Maxifys in service mode and a compatible software tool to reset the waste pads counter ( ink leakage being left to the care of the user... )
I have to say that, in spite of having churned 48000 pages, my older IP3000 shows no signs of ink overflow (touching wood ). No waste pads change or cleaning but, of course, the counter was reset once when it was at 085. Now it has raised again up to 070.

I printed years with a MX7600, a pigment version of nearly similar dye printers.
In my experience it used more ink than the Maxify.
I placed a printer potty after 20.000p since the printer had a design problem with the ink purge tube.
The eprom print showed 80% full but the ink absorbers were not full at all.
I guess a large model Maxify could be good for 30 to 50K.

Artur5 said:

We can only hope that somebody comes along with a method to put the Maxifys in service mode and a compatible software tool to reset the waste pads counter ( ink leakage being left to the care of the user... )

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I don't know if this is true, but here is a video claiming to show the entering of service mode on a Maxify printer, using the 5 presses of the stop/resume button. The behaviour of the lights looks normal to me.

Here and here are Ebay offers of service tools that claim to work with Maxify models.

I have got no Maxify printer so I cannot tell if the claims are true or not.

Good to know that but I have my doubts that the old system of push buttons works with those printers. Maybe one of the lucky owners of Maxifys might be kind enough to take the risk and try it for us ?.
Time ago I read somewhere that the Pro10s could be put into service mode in this way too. I was fool enough to try but it didn't work at all. The machine was left unresponsive to the front panel buttons and undetected by the computer. Service tools didn't see it either. I had to remove the power cable, wait a few minutes, reconnect the cable and luckily the printer was back to normal operation. I haven't tried again.

Artur5 said:

( one of my IP3000s has reached already 48k).

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I’ve still have an iP4500 going strong with over 54K on it and no waste pad change yet, and frankly I don’t know how it’s still going on its original print head...

I looked at a Maxify at the office supply store today and noticed the strange cart load system. I wonder if a shorted print head will kill the printer like with other Canon’s?

Artur5 said:

Good to know that but I have my doubts that the old system of push buttons works with those printers. Maybe one of the lucky owners of Maxifys might be kind enough to take the risk and try it for us ?. ......

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The button pushing is only used for entering service mode. For the service mode operations a software service tool is needed.

Artur5 said:

...Time ago I read somewhere that the Pro10s could be put into service mode in this way too. I was fool enough to try but it didn't work at all. The machine was left unresponsive to the front panel buttons and undetected by the computer. Service tools didn't see it either. I had to remove the power cable, wait a few minutes, reconnect the cable and luckily the printer was back to normal operation. I haven't tried again.

Click to expand...

I wonder if this is the same kind of service mode locking as seen on printers of the PCI-x50/CLI-x51 cartridge generation and newer, when using a too old version of the service tool? Notice that version 5204 of the service tool also claims to reset these Pro models: Pro-1, Pro-10, Pro-100, Pro-100S, Pro-10S, Mark 9000F, Mark 9000F MKII, Pro-500, Pro-1000, Pro 9000 MKII and Pro 9500 MKII.

You may be right of course. Anyway, what scared me the other time was that I couldn’t switch off the machine pressing the power button, like my other Canon printers did when they were in service mode. When I tried the service tool and it didn’t detect the printer, I thought it better not to explore further in fear of ending up with a dead machine. I don’t recall the exact version of that service tool.

Using service tool version 3400 I have experienced the same locking of service mode on a Canon MG5550 that is of the PGI-550/CLI-551 generation. I have successfully resat an MG5450S that is of the same cartridge generation using a newer service tool version 4720.

I think that if you need to reset a Maxify you should buy one of the versions that promises to reset the printer. Be careful if you look for a free download of one of the newest service tools, there is a high risk of downloading something unwanted in stead of the service tool. I also think the service tool should not be tested on the Maxify before needed. What if it ruins the printer?