MG6120 printer showing "ink absorber nearly full"

stratman

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Welcome to the forum, BevG. What a great story you've shared! Your recipes are an instant heirloom and will be cherished as a taste of home wherever your family goes.

Your trusty MG6120 will eventually stop working when the ink absorber pads are marked as full by the printer. At this point you have three choices:

1) Send your printer to a Printer repair/service shop. A call to Canon USA will provide the location of the nearest shop to you. This location may be not be near or the cost of maintenance more expensive than a new printer. Additionally, the repair shop may say they no longer can obtain Canon OEM parts for the job. Even if this is true, some shops may improvise, but it will still cost a lot.

2) DIY reset the ink absorber pad counter. See the link below for your printer's Service Manual which has instructions and pictures of the steps involved.

http://s.siteapi.org/2978ba5922f512d.ru/docs/a27dc6b2257e7e49ea2610f743b0e5befbce69ff.pdf

You will need an appropriate Service Tool - a software file - that is installed on the same computer the printer is installed (See below for discussion on the Service Tool). The printer must be connected by a printer cable and not WiFi. There will be a series of button pushes on the printer in order to enter into Service Mode first in order to use the Service Tool. Once in Service Mode you use the Service Tool to reset the ink absorber pad counter. At this point you have a choice:
  • Dissemble the printer, making careful notes and pictures of the order each part was removed, its location, and the orientation of the part before taking it apart/out. Once the ink absorber pads are uncovered, either replace or wash out the ink absorber pads. If you wash out the pads, use gloves and a place you won't mind getting inky water splashed on. Lay the wet cleaned pads out on a surface, like drying a sweater you don't want to hang up and get stretched, and let them dry till nearly but not completely dry. A still slightly wet pad will have a little stretchiness in order to fit back into place in the printer. A totally dry pad may shrink and not completely cover the location it is supposed to fill. Now reassemble your printer. Hopefully no "extra" part is left over. While sounding daunting, no step is difficult. Just make careful notes and take images along the way. Expect it to take several hours if your first time.
  • Reset the ink absorber pad counter and then place the printer on a tray which can collect any ink overflow. There has been discussion on the forum that you may not have overflow ink for one more cycle of ink absorber pad counter countdown. If that is the case then something else in the printer may go bad before you need to clean out the printer and pads years from now.
3) Buy a new printer.


There are several forum members knowledgeable in the selection and use of the proper version of the Service Tool and the sequence of button pushes on the printer to enter Service Mode. Forum member @PeterBJ started a thread on Canon Service Tools and their use. PeterBJ or another member should be able to help with this area. Since a number of members are in Europe and probably asleep at the moment, you may not hear from them until (our) tomorrow.
 

stratman

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Congratulations, Bev! :thumbsup

Something puzzled me, though - when the Service Tools window popped up, the counter was already set at 0%. Does that mean it automatically resets when the Service Tool is launched?
It is my understanding that resetting the waste ink counter is something you must actively, purposefully, initiate. It does not occur passively when the Service Tool starts up.

If you can, please upload an image of your EEPROM report so we can take a look, too. :)
 
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