Canon PIXMA printer ink absorber full

When the cartridges are parked, there is a pad that absorbs ink when the nozzles self-clean. After a while it gets full. Put the printer in the change ink mode to move the cartridges away from their parked position. If there is a plastic cover over the absorber, remove it. Then take a straight pin and pull the absorber pad out. Wash out the excessive ink and let it dry before reinstalling.

This may clear the ink absorber problem. There is ink absorbers located at both ends of the printer where the ink head move.
To dry the ink absorber, power up the printer and open the cover so the ink cartridges and print head will move to the middle of the printer.
Then take several sheets of absorbent tissue, fold it into a pad and place it inside the printer over the ink absorber on the far left hand side of the printer to soak up the excess ink. You may need to change the absorbent tissue a few times. Then repeat the same procedure on the right hand ink absorber.
Close the lid and the printer should now function normally.

The waste ink absorbers are pads that absorb waste ink during head cleaning cycles. One set of pads is below where the print cartridges rest when not in use. There is another set of pads at the bottom of the printer. If the error is "waste ink nearly full", press OK to clear the error temporarily.

Cleaning these or replacing them is a messy job and may not be worth it. If the printer is under warranty, get Canon to do it for you. If you decide to do it yourself, have plenty of newspaper (or other absorbant material) ready. Take apart the printer from the top; there are some screws you may have to remove to get at the pads. Then blot off most of the ink. Blot the excess ink from within the areas where the pads sit. Place the pads under running water until the water runs clear. Dry the pads; you can use a hair dryer to speed this step if you want. Then reassemble the printer.

Next reset the waste ink counter. Do not start this step before cleaning or replacing the pads; waste ink will get everywhere after a short time.
Power off printer
Hold down STOP/RESET button then Press and Hold down Power button
Keep Power button down and Release STOP/RESET button
Push STOP/RESET button twice
let go of power button

Wait 20-30 seconds - my display shows "canon Idle"
Push STOP/RESET button four times
Push Power button twice
Power off
Next time the printer is started the waste count will have been reset.

Please note that the counter is designed to be a number of pages that will be reached when the printer is reaching its end of life. Additional failures may occur soon.

I hope this helps.

Cindy Wells

first, try to establish if this really is full absorbent pad, remove power cable from the back, wait 20sec, press menu/set key, insert power mains - in most brother printer/faxes this will display machine error code. if this is code 46, you are on the money, your absorbent pad is full (not necessarily, only counter is showing it as such in most cases).

we will asssume that counter is showing full and therefore reset it again to zero:

1. after machine code is displayed, key in "80",
2. go down with arrow key till you find "purge counter"
3. type "2783" this should set counter to "0"
4. press "stop/exit"
5. press "9" twice
6. remove cartridges from craddle
7. remove power cord
8. insert power cord back
9. switch on printer
10. insert cartridges back

if that do not work, then maybe really you need to replace absorbent sponge... it is done under warranty and if not technician in service centre.

if you want to do it yourself, remove cartridges, remove fron cover and on the right hand you will have "offending" sponge. either clean it (absorbent, lint free tissue is fine to remove excess first, then few drop of water and repeat draining process with tissue several time, at least till "cake" from the top is removed. best of course will be to replace the sponge with new one.

after that you still need to reset counter. in another way - follow steps...

if the printer shows ink absorber full on display you have to firsst physically acess the ink absorber pad then clean it up by removing the excesses ink from the pad ,follow the step below to do this
STEP 1:
- Disconnect printer from AC power supply

STEP 2:
- Press and HOLD the POWER button, and connect printer to AC power
Power up with the cover open until the head moves to the left side then disconnect the power cord so that the head is positioned away from the pads. raise The two pads easily with a pair of sharp tweezers and the rinse in running water. it will become white again and can be blotted with paper napkins then air dried in a warm location(may be in an oven) . cleaned the wells in the rubber holdet with cotton swabs before returning the two pads