iPF8000 ink dump

**costd** · 03-17-2008

Working the issue with Canon, but thought I would check for anyone else having the issue.

An iPF8000 decided to dump all of its' ink. Maint kit should have stopped it, but didn't.

As I said, Canon is working on it with me (part swapping). They said it is not a known issue - but I have heard from a couple other techs. No names, but a national company rep said their iPF8000 has a big ink stain on the floor that was worse than ours as we had the small bottles - they had the large

. The guy that fixed it is out for a week or so.

Anyone have this challange identified (by other than swap till it stop)?

fixit · 11-18-2008

have similar issue during initial start up ,coded e161-403e and dumped.Any input?

**costd** · 11-18-2008

Both yes and no. They have quite a rep for ink dumping due to an issue with the main board. An "unnamed, highly placed source" says all but one (ours) of these dumping issues he has been involved in were corrected with the board replacement - and the issue does not come back.

Ours was a bit different. Replaced the board, power supply, and print heads. When we turned it on, lots of noise but no ink to the heads. After checking further we found a gear not meshing right in the pump. Looking into it more we discovered the original issue was cause by the unit running a cleaning purge without (for whatever reason) capping. A real wild, way out, best guess (and I do mean guess) seems to be they were going to move the unit so turned it off and then unplugged it before the capping/cleaning was done, and left it that way over the weekend. Over the weekend all the ink drained out the uncapped nozzles, and into the purge unit and maint kit. Once those were filled .... The dried ink, I GUESS, caused the movement, or restricted the movement, of the pump gear in the purge unit. When it was then powered back on (several times by them before we got there) the gear warped. Cannot replace just the gear as the purge unit is one assembly (all these wide formats are, for the most part, assemblies. Replaced the purge unit and all has been well since.

If I had to do it again, I would start by looking to see if the nozzels are capped, and then bring the unit up in service mode to see if the purge pump is working right. If so, then I would replace the main board. At the same time, if the print heads are PF02s I would also replace them.

BTW: To Canon's credit, they replaced all the parts and supplied a full set of inks at no charge to the customer. Yes the unit was still under warranty (it had 1 week to go - LUCKY) but no hassle at all. Only complaint was the typical - gee this is the first time anyone has ever reported ink dumping.