Pro-100; No low warning when PM was (pretty much) empty

[jjohnl]

The two pads in the picture uploaded by The Hat are not waste pads, they are purge unit pads and their purpose is to distribute vacuum evenly under the print head nozzles when cleaning the nozzles. They are made from a hard and porous plastic material.

The waste pads or ink absorber pads are much larger pads made of a felt like material, and the pads are installed inside the printer case at the bottom. Ink sucked out from the print head during print head cleaning is deposited in these absorber pads.

See this drawing from a parts catalog for Canon Pixma iP5200. The absorbers are marked "1".

View attachment 4236

That's a LOT of waste pad! And now I see why people talk about them being impossible to replace.
Thanks for the info.

 

[The Hat]

Just to be clear, the black-looking ink I was talking about is not around the purge unit, it's on the bottom of the head and in the head carriage.

The reason for the build up of ink on the underside of the print head is because the wiper blades which are located beside the purge pad are probably themselves covered in ink too.

Here marked with a red circle are the wiper blades, they are in fact just small pieces of plastic.
click to enlarge Pics.

So am I understanding that those 2 pads in your picture are the waste pads? I always thought the long sponge strip that the head rides above was the waste pad.

No the platen area of a printer is this bit marked in red, this is where all excess ink that gets spilled or sprayed when using borderless printing goes, and then drops down into the waste pads below, as shown by @PeterBJ drawing in post#30

 

[jjohnl]

The reason for the build up of ink on the underside of the print head is because the wiper blades which are located beside the purge pad are probably themselves covered in ink too.

Here marked with a red circle are the wiper blades, they are in fact just small pieces of plastic.

So I assume they move from front to back (or vice-versa) to remove ink from the nozzles? And if a cart is leaking, and the head is sitting over the purge pad for days at a time, then the leaked ink floods the purge pad?

 

[The Hat]

and the head is sitting over the purge pad for days at a time, then the leaked ink floods the purge pad?

That would be about the only place the leaking ink can go too and it would also explain why you get red in only your first photo, I am surprised that you don’t have some magenta migrating to an adjacent cartridge, have you check them.. ?

When you first turn up your printer, run a normal head clean before you start to print and this will eliminate the red issue and would save wasting good photo paper, until that is, you can figure out where the problem is and fix it..

 

[jjohnl]

That would be about the only place the leaking ink can go too and it would also explain why you get red in only your first photo,

But it seems that there would be red blobs or smears, not that it would be applied uniformly across the print. That's why I'm having a problem understanding this.

I am surprised that you don’t have some magenta migrating to an adjacent cartridge, have you check them.. ?

You mean just looking at them around the output port?

When you first turn up your printer, run a normal head clean before you start to print and this will eliminate the red issue and would save wasting good photo paper, until that is, you can figure out where the problem is and fix it..

That's a good idea.
Thanks

 

[The Hat]

But it seems that there would be red blobs or smears, not that it would be applied uniformly across the print. That's why I'm having a problem understanding this.

Once the ink leaks out of the cart, it would take quite a lot of time to cover the purge pad, but you also have to remember, this type of leak you’re experiencing must be very small and that’s probably why you’re finding it so hard to detect it.

You mean just looking at them around the output port?

Yes, but also put a small piece of paper to the cart outlet and test if that colour is the same as the ink in the refill bottle..

 

[jjohnl]

Once the ink leaks out of the cart, it would take quite a lot of time to cover the purge pad, but you also have to remember, this type of leak you’re experiencing must be very small and that’s probably why you’re finding it so hard to detect it.

What I mean is, there's enough ink to cover a large portion of the print but it's uniformly distributed over the print. Why isn't it a blob like the "black" blobs on the nozzle check?
[/QUOTE]

 

[The Hat]

If a leak migrates to infect a cartridge then the first prints will avail of the contaminated colour till the normal colour has returned, and the printer has way of knowing which colours has been
compromised.
The blobs of ink on the underside of your print head are caused by a build up of excess ink and are not controlled by the print head, so they can appear at any time in any shape or form..

 

[jjohnl]

I believe the M cart is leaking. On Monday I put all the carts in a clear plastic container, sitting upright just as they do in the printer. I've found a tiny (tiny!) bit of M ink in the container where the cart's output port touches. I've cleaned up the container and the cart's port and put them all back. We'll see if I find more M ink on the container.

 

[turbguy]

Now here's something interesting I didn't notice before; maybe it's a clue.

Once a week, even if I don't have time to do any real printing, I print a nozzle check then a 4x6 test image, to protect the print head. This was done on May 25. I didn't even notice those black blobs at the end of the sheet of paper! They're slightly darker on the side with the nozzle check so that would have been the first part of the page to come out; in other words, the first paper that came out of the printer in about a week.

Does this mean anything to anyone? (By the way, the 4x6 image on the other side of the paper doesn't have any unusual blobs or colors; it's just really absurd color because it's plain paper.)

View attachment 4233

Are you sure you used PM instead of M in the refill? PM looks too similar to M to me (although is could be a scanning issue).