Canon PRO-1 Ink Absorber

[MikeBG]

I have a Canon PRO-1 which has not been heavily used in 6 years, but has done far too many cleaning cycles with the result that I am now getting a message 1700 that the ink absorber is almost full.

I have been told that this means a trip to the local Canon service centre, however here in Israel that has meant a hopeless place where they need to order the part from Japan, taking 2 months and costing me about $1000. I COULD GET 2 NEW PRINTERS FOR THAT MONEY!

Before ditching the printer, is it possible to do this yourself? I have also read of people connecting these printers to a 'printer potty' - an external ink tank which can prevent such things happening in the future, and software to print a 4x6 print every 59 hours to avoid massive ink cleaning losses, but in the meantime I guess that the ionly thing to do is to replace that tank.

What worries me is that they told me that the main board also needs changing, which I find odd, as the printer seemed to work fine until this message came up. I am not convinced they knew what they were talking about as they said they hadn'e serviced many of these printers (even though they are the official Canon reps in Israel). However, the ink absorber part seems to be expensive as it is so I would not want to spend money on a new one only to discover that the main board also does need replacing.

So what should I do?

 

[The Hat]

So what should I do?

The first thing you should do is to see if you can enter Service More on the printer, this is done by a sequence of button press in an exact fashion, the result is if you can, then the printer can be saved at a very reasonable cost and there will be no need to send it to a Service Agent.

If you can’t enter service mode using the sequence below, then your printer would be better used as a door stop...

---------------------------
i. With the printer power turned off, while pressing the Resume/Cancel button, press and hold the ON button. (DO NOT release the buttons.)

ii. When the Power LED lights in white, while holding the ON button, release the Resume/Cancel button. (DO NOT release the ON button.)

iii. While holding the ON button, press the Resume/Cancel button 5 times, and release the ON button. (Each time the Resume/Cancel button is pressed, the Alarm and Power LEDs light alternately, Alarm in orange and Power in white.)

iv. When the Power LED lights in white, the printer is in service mode operation..

 

[MikeBG]

Thanks!

After reaching stage (iii) (after pressing 5 times) the white power light flashes for a while and then remains steady. Is that OK?

Assuming this is OK, do I need to have the ink tanks in the machine to progress? I took them out to stop them being wasted every time the machine was switched on.

 

[The Hat]

Well that’s good news for you, your now need to take the same steps again but this time use the Service tool V34.00 and reset your waste ink counter, you’ll need to put the carts back in to print out an EPROM test report to confirm your waste ink has been re-set back to zero.
Just re-name this file as an EXE, but don't try to unzip it," service tool v3400.exe "

 

[stratman]

Here is the .exe file The Hat renamed to a fake .zip file now as a true compressed file. Zero malicious content was seen on a scan at virustotal.com.

I was able to download it using a download manager. When I tried to directly download it by clicking on the file link and letting Windows handle it, my antivirus Norton Security flagged and deleted it. A case of false positive it appears, since scanning it with Norton's after renaming the file from .zip to .exe was without issue.

I did not start the application so have no idea if it works.

 

[MikeBG]

Thanks! That will save me a fortune! Will I not get ink overflowing from the absorber if it is full? or is it not 'really' full, just Canon being ultra cautious?

Printer is working perfectly now! I don't know how to thank you guys!

I have installed QImage Ultimate now to print a nozzle pattern every 48 hours. I read that the printer doesn't set the cleaning cycle until it has not been used for 60 hours, but would rather that the unattended jobs would run overnight at the same time so I chose 48 hours instead of, say 55 hours.

 

[stratman]

Will I not get ink overflowing from the absorber if it is full?

Eventually if used long enough. A tray placed underneath the printer will help prevent ink leaking onto surfaces you rather it not.

You might want to check out @The Hat 's saga to divert waste ink away from the ink absorber pads of the PRO 1:

https://www.printerknowledge.com/threads/pro-1-maintenance-tank-up-date.7831/

 

[The Hat]

@MikeBG, I will PM you later with Instructions on how to fit a Printer Potty..

 

[MikeBG]

I received the instructions from @The Hat and when I had a spare couple of days I set to installing the Printer Potty. It took a long time, as I was very wary of damaging such a valuable item of equipment and I needed some assistance from @The Hat as the pictures on the pdf he sent me were not always so clear, but the printer is now back up and running, with the excess ink running as planned into the Printer Potty.

I should point out that when disassembled it looked HORRENDOUS! I was really worried I would never manage to put it back together again! @The Hat reassured me that putting it back together was much easier than taking it apart, and that was indeed true. All in all the procedure was not that difficult and well worth doing in order to save a good few hundred pounds/dollars on a trip to the service centre which would cost almost as much as a new printer!

 

[MikeBG]

Just a short follow up:

I did some printing yesterday - first printing after installing the Potty and I am pleased to report that it all went perfectly.