Pro9000 mk2 4 flashing yellow light

[rodbam]

Had some trouble with a couple of carts not lighting up red after refilling. I've had this happen a few times but after wiggling the carts they stay lit up & work fine. One cart was showing up as empty so I replaced all the carts with full ones & now I keep getting the 4 yellow warning lights & can't print even though I press the fault button. I cleaned all the cart contacts & the head contacts with iospropanol & all carts lit up red but the yellow light still flashes 4 times.
I replaced every cart with a newly refilled & cleaned carts & the same problem is still there. Both sets of carts are as old as the printer, I can't remember how old but I have been using the Pro9500 for years now & me missus uses the 9000 for a few A4 print outs now & again.
I'm not game to buy a full set of Canon carts for $225 & that's the discount price to see if that fixes the problem so I was thinking of buying a generic set of prefilled chipped carts at $33 for the set of 8 just to try in the printer to see if the printer would print.
What do you lot think is the way to go? I'm wondering if it's just a faulty printer that needs to be buried & I can buy the missus a cheap A4 printer as a replacement.
Thanks all & hope you are all going well & keeping out of trouble.
Just noticed I joined here in 2011 so the carts & printer must be about 8-9 years old.

 

[The Hat]

Hi @rodbam, sounds like your calling in here for your 10000 Km service…

The most likely cause of your problem is your purge unit, it maybe bunged up with gung and will need a bit of a clean.

Try cleaning purge unit with window cleaner and give the whole area around the unit a good splashing and then mop up as much as you can with kitchen towels and cotton buds, then flood the unit with cleaner and run a purge cycle.. She as likely to spring back as good as ever, good luck..

P.S. try hanging on to this printer because there’s not a lot of good printers to pick from anymore, small cart, not easy to refill and new carts cost the earth, but if you want a rugged all-rounder, then check out the Maxify range of models, they don’t look much but they last for ever and can be refilled easy.. Especially the ones with big carts..

 

[Artur5]

If I understood correctly, apart from the 4 yellow blinks, you still have 2 carts not lit up ?. Are there any messages in the computer ? ( i.e. asking to replace these specific colors because they’re empty )

Four orange blinks of the printer means that at least one of the cartridges is empty, not installed or not recognized. In this case, the ‘culprit’ cart blinks or doesn’t lights at all. Might be as well a problem of the printer, maybe as @The Hat says, a faulty purge unit or possibly something wrong in the logic board of the printer.

If two carts remain dead (i.e. no red light at all ) in spite of have been refilled and reset, it’s usually a faulty chip. Another possibility, albeit rare, is a broken wire between the contacts in the carriage and the logic board. Usually this problem doesn’t arises at once but intermittently, as the wire corrosion advances until the contact is broken definitively.

Try to remove the faulty cartridges one at a time, to see if the message error changes or if the condition of the other ‘possibly faulty’ cart changes too. Sometimes, a single faulty chip might fool the logic board and the printer looses self control, so to speak,

As a last chance, try to replace the faulty carts with one of the other six that are lit normally. Let’s suppose that cyan is faulty and yellow OK. If it was a problem of a faulty cyan chip, then the yellow cart should be recognized as the wrong color in the cyan slot, the red led of the cart would blink and a warning message would appear on the computer. If the yellow cart in the cyan doesn’t even blinks but remains spent, then the problem is likely a broken wire of the cyan slot.

 

[PeterBJ]

I have experienced something similar with a Canon Pixma iP5200, see this.

 

[The Hat]

Checking back a bit on my iP4500 and @Artur5 might be on to something, (He likes to keep me on my toes), if your cart chips are giving trouble it might also be the resetter is low on power, try a battery change.. or chips...

 

[stratman]

@Artur5 might be on to something

Yes, Artur5 is, but, a resetter battery issue was first mentioned by YOU in PeterBJ's link above. Credit where credit is due. Thank yourself or PeterBJ for linking back to you.

 

[rodbam]

Thanks The Hat, Arthur (all the carts are lit up red), PeterBJ & Stratman
I will clean the purge unit, put a new battery in the resetter & change the carts around to see if that tells me something.
Great advice as usual, thanks again

 

[rodbam]

The pro9000 is running now thanks to you lot I cleaned the purge pads & took the resetter apart which has 3 small LR 41 batteries. I checked the voltage as 1.26v on the one cell I removed & it should be 1.5v, is this OK? Yesterday the missus had her laptop in the other room when I was trying to get rid of the flashing amber fault light so I didn't see any on screen message but today I had the laptop hooked up & it said the PM was not recognised which is strange because when I changed all the carts yesterday it didn't fix anything but now with the purge clean & a longer time for the cart in the resetter the printer is now up & running. Big hug to everyone

 

[The Hat]

the printer is now up & running. Big hug to everyone

@rodbam, You got two good printers there, so cherish them as long as you can..

 

[PeterBJ]

Measuring the unloaded voltage of a cell or battery is not the most accurate way to determine if the cell is still good. Measuring the voltage under load is better. But a new and unused alkaline button cell will show an unloaded voltage of around 1.57 V, so I will say your cell with 1.26 V is worn out. I recommend to replace all 3 cells immediately to avoid more problems caused by the resetter. Worn out cells can also leak electrolyte that can corrode the circuitry.

See this thread for more about resetters and batteries.