Ink waste tank full, really really full

[Craig Ross]

A couple of posts ago I posed the question how many times can you reset the ink tank full message without actually doing anything and on another post attempted to use a vacuum line to empty the tank Rob thought 40 to 50 mls was quite a lot of ink to get get out. But let me tell you Rob it wasn't nearly enough as the next picture shows

So I set about dismantling the printer as per Niel Slade's web site instructions, very simple really, 4 or 5 snap clips gets the top off and four screws and two mounting brackets hold the the entire printing assembly to the base.

And here it is folks, the dreaded waste tank.

I estimate I cleaned out about 500mls of ink, yes 500mls! Luckily Canon's design is very simple and the ink didn't get near anything that could do damage. Even the power supply is in a single clip out sealed unit, shown in the foreground of the last shot with the pad wringed clean under water and dried out.

BTW, I reset the waste full message 4 times to get this.

 

[drc023]

If this doesn't prove a picture is worth a thousand words nothing will. Do you have any idea as to how many cleaning and deep cleaning cycles have been run through this printer?

 

[Craig Ross]

At a guess 12 months worth of borderless printing, 3 to 4000 A4 prints worth and cleaning or deep cleaning just about every second day mostly because of the pesky light magenta cart not printing. The printer is an A3+ printer so has a bigger waste pad than an A4, so by approximation I would get an ink tank full message about every 1000 A4s.

 

[Grandad35]

Craig,

Great post! Some questions:
1. How thick is the sponge?
2. It appears that the overspray from borderless printing goes into the same sponge - is this the case?
3. What caused you to finally clean the sponge? Did ink start to drip out of the printer?
4. Where does the vacuum pump that pulls ink from the print head dump its ink?
5. Was the sponge fairly uniformly saturated across its length, or was there more ink at the home position?
6. Did it appear that most of the water had already evaporated from the ink (was it "thicker" than normal)? If so, you may have dumped more than a liter of ink into the sponge to get to this point.

 

[BlasterQ]

The Ink Tank Full message error, the only thing I'm dreading the most!

Excellent post Craig, It is just very comforting that if this happens, there is a way to fix it.

 

[Craig Ross]

Granddad hope this photo clarifies a few things for you

The pad itself is about 2cm thick and is made from some type of wool like material kinda like a quilt. The drain posts from the over spray sponge is a very dense type of sponge, similar to the type inside a Canon cart but much denser. The waste pad was uniformly saturated but given the amount of ink, I'm not surprised. Last time I did this was over 12 months ago and after only one waste full message. The pad was not uniform and was biased to the priming side. The ink was of a thicker consistency so I would imagine some evaporation had taken place.

 

[Grandad35]

Craig,

Thanks for the info. Have you ever considered attaching tubing extensions to the ends of the priming pump discharge tubing and feeding the extensions out the back of the printer as shown on this link for an Epson printer (http://www.stevesforums.com/forums/view_topic.php?id=51595&forum_id=40)?

If you don't have room for an ink container on the printer stand, it should be possible to tape an ostomy bag to the side of the stand (these bags are obviously very strong and are made for applications where a leak would be a disaster).

 

[Nifty]

SIMPLY AMAZING! Well done Craig!

Any chance you got some EPROM memory / stats / information before and after cleaning the pads? I'm very curious if cleaning the pads make any difference at all to the "D=#". I doubt that it does, but it would be interesting to finally verify this.

Imagine a liter of ink in the bottom of your printer. What is worse is to imagine it being all OEM ink.

I'm amazed that your vacuum removal technique didn't keep you from having to go through this.

Craig, is one handle on the needle nose pliers stained black or missing the padding?

 

[Craig Ross]

Rob I thought 50 or so mls of ink vacuumed out was plenty, WRONG it was only when I tipped the printer on an angle that ink ran out and it was obvious I was going to have to pull it apart with my trusty 20 years + old needle nose pliers that is missing one handle pad.

Unfortunately I did not do any epromm stats.

Grandad I have considered drilling a 5cm hole in the bottom and wicking ink out to a tray. The printer could sit on much like the drip tray at the bottom of a fridge but the way I get around to things that'll probably never happen.

ps I didn't reset the ink waste as I did that for the fourth time a couple of weeks ago but I will be sure to
do an eprom stat on the next waste full which won't be that far away.

pps One thing I forgot to mention on the original post was that the printer assembly is connected to the power supply by one cable only and when unplugged can be lifted away from the base. The power supply itself is just clipped into the base for removal which allows you to completely rinse the base out in a sink,
very handy.

 

[websnail]

Just wanted to say thanks for posting this Ross..

I'm in the process of trying to find ways to extend the life of an MP750 / 780 printer and given that I'm already putting CIS kits in, a little extra adaptation work to redirect those waste tubes into a reservoir doesn't seem too much of a hard task..

From what I can tell there's still the need to do an ink pad replacement after probably 3 or 4 counter resets, even if the ink from cleaning, priming, etc... was being run to an external waste bottle/tray... but the kicker now is going to be the need to reset the counter for which I still don't have a code..

Ah well.. these things are never "easy"