Canon waste ink pad: how long does it take to get the full message ?

[pharmacist]

I'm wondering how long it will take to get your printer generating the "waste ink pad full" ? I know you can reset the message, but how many times is it save to ignore the message before your printer really floods over ? And is it possible to -like the epson printers- guide the ink away from the printer with tubing of some kind ? It's a pity that those printer companies didn't make a design with a special inktank that can be taken away from the printer (in a special cartridge or so and behind a lid). Has anybody tried to build such system to guide away the waste ink from the Canon printer ?

Maybe I should take a specially made vacuum cleaner and suck the ink away from the ink pads, will this also create a vacuum causing the ink to flow upwards toward the ink pads (from the underlying felt pad and through the tubes) and then sucked away from the printer ? And then do a reset of the "waste ink pad full" message ?

Is this a feasible alternative instead of completely dismantling the printer and replacing another ink waste pad underneath the printer ?

 

[Defcon2k]

You can guide the waste ink outside the printer, but you will have to open it once to remove the waste ink pads and to put a jar or something like that under the purge unit. [pic]

The time until the "waste ink pad full"-message depends. The guy from the pic says that he prints very much (one print head lasts only 2 months for him), and that there is also a good amount of ink purged away during the normal printing routine (80 ml after 5 days of heavy duty printing, so his waste ink jar (250ml) is filled completely after 2 weeks).

 

[Grandad35]

You might find this of interest:
http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=308

 

[ghwellsjr]

I doubt that vacuuming the purge pads will suck up ink from the waste tank. There is a peristaltic pump in the way. This type of pump pinches the tubing with some rollers that rotate and move the liquid along in the tubing. The tubing is always pinched so you won't get any flow through the tubing when the pump is not activated and when it is moving, it is going the wrong direction.

 

[pharmacist]

At the moment for my Canon i9950 and IX4000 printer I take a piece of tissue paper, fold this into a dense cube and use this to absorb the ink from the ink waste pads on the right side after every printjob and an elongated rolled tissue to absorb the ink from the overspray area. You'll be surprised how much ink is discarded every time looking at the amount of ink absorbed into those tissue papers. Hopefully this will dramatically extend the time I really need to change the waste ink pad underneath the printer. I think this should drastically reduce the amount of ink being collected underneath the printer and hopefully this -overtime- even will evaporate.

 

[Trigger 37]

Pharmacist,.... Sorry but you are wrong. Dabbing the suction caps where the printhead parks during cleaning would only get 2-5% of the ink that is really sucked through the purge unit. The purge unit sucks the ink down and spits it out into the open where it just falls to the waste ink pads. Yes the water content in the ink will evaporate, but until you have opened and cleaned the pads yourself, you won't believe just how much ink is down there. How long will they last, well there is a lot of pad down there, but it is not that bad to take the unit apart and clean them. If you want to know how much ink you have dumped, go into Service Mode and print the Service Test information. The item "D" is the % of ink dumped.

One other point,... ghwellsjr is correct. There is absolutley no way to "Vacuum ink backwards out of the ink suction Caps. The bottom of the purge unit has two tubes and one dumps black ink and the other dumps color ink and they are just open to the air and the ink falls or is spurted downward at an angle to the pads which are about 1/2" below or less. There is no connection. There is residual ink left in the caps to help keep the bottom of the printhead from drying out, so I would think that sucking ink off the caps or wiping it off with tissue does more harm than good, as now the printhead can dry out.

One of these days I hope to convince many people that have Canon printers that it is not that hard to take one apart and clean the insides. If you print alot, I would think that once a year is not unreasonable. At least every other year for most people.

 

[pharmacist]

If you want to know how much ink you have dumped, go into Service Mode and print the Service Test information. The item "D" is the % of ink dumped.

Hi Trigger 37, thanks for the information I did not know this, but how can I go to the Service mode and print the service test information ? I want to know how much ink has been already discarded away into the pads.

 

[Trigger 37]

Pharmacist,... I'm not at home and I don't have the manuals with me but I think it is very simple to get into Service mode.

1. Turn the printer off
2. Press and hold the Resume button,.. and while holding it, press the Power button and then release the Resume button but hold the power button,... and press the Resume button Twice.
3. Release the power button and the green light will flash a couple of times and you will be in Service Mode. It will stay in Service Mode unit you take other actions.
4. To force the Service Test print, press the Resume button once and then the power button once. Make sure you have paper in the printer before you do this.

The printer will print out the information and it will still be in Service Mode.
5. To print out the EEprom data, press the resume button twice and then the power button once. It will print the eeprom data.

One way to know that you are in service mode is that each time you press the resume button, the green light will turn to orange and then back to green on the next press.

To exit the Service mode just press the power button once and it will power down.

I hope this is correct as I'm doing this from memory.

 

[pharmacist]

Hi Trigger,

Thanks for your information and expertise. I'm only an amateur on those things. But I finally got the printer to spew out these data, how should they be interpreted ?

i9950 V1.05
D-000.15
CH=00002
ST=2005/06/30 (commencing day of printer ?)
PWC(S=00041 H=00015)
ERDAY=2007/06/09 (probably the date today ?)
OERO=01615
SERO=08000
SER1=08000

The guy I purchased this printer from said he only used it sporadically (maybe 30 A3+ large prints and 50 A4 prints), could someone confirm this might be true while interpreting the service mode print ?

 

[Defcon2k]

D=000.15 means that your waste ink pads are filled 0.15%. So the waste ink counter was probably reset only some days ago.
"ST" is indeed the date of the first start of the printer (aquired from the system time of the PC the printer was connected to then).

The EEPROM print may show some other interesting things:

"TPAGE" = total pages
"PAGE" = ASF feed pages (all=all, PP=plain paper, HR=high resolution
paper and so on)
"UCPAGE" = U-turn cassette feed pages
"L" = 10x15cm pages (4x6")
"CDR" = CDs
"P_ON" = power on count
"PC" = purging count (manual/deep cleaning/timer/dot count/ink tank
replacement)
"CH" = Head changes
"CT" = tank changes (ink tank replacement count)

Your EEPROM items may differ slightly, this is the stuff from my iP5200.