IPF8300 Level 3, how long?

[shewhorn]

Has anyone done a level 3 move before? I need to get the printer down two flights. The movers are coming tomorrow morning. It will most likely need to be tipped vertical to make it around a corner. I've started a level 3 purge. It made a bunch of pumping noises initially and for the past few hours it's just been sitting there saying "absorbing ink". Anyone know how long this is supposed to take?

Cheers, Joe

[Jeff Magidson]

I would give Canon tech support a call and ask, they are very helpful. FWIW, I have heard that a level 3 purges a ton of ink.

~ Jeff

[shewhorn]

It purges up to 1.8 liters of ink or $771 bucks (don't get me started... LOVE the prints this printer makes, but for a myriad of reasons due to cost of operation it's unlikely that the next one is going to be another Canon... did some basic analysis on the Epson and it looks like a better deal over the long haul but I'll have to do that analysis again when it's time to replace them). Anyhow... Canon is pretty useless right now. I have movers coming at 9 AM and I need this printer to be ready when they get here. I figured 14 hours would  be plenty of time and have me offline for a minimal amount of time. Unfortunately the manual doesn't say anything about how long it takes to purge.

Cheers, Joe

[shewhorn]

The official answer is that a Level 3 purge should take about 45 minutes to complete. Be warned, if you've scheduled people to come move your printer, your printer might be a wise ass and display a message like "consumables need replacing, call Canon for service" (you can't execute a purge until this warning is cleared). This isn't mentioned anywhere in the manual and if you've paid someone to show up at a certain time, this could end up costing you $$$ (far more than it should already cost just to move the darn thing down 2 flights of stairs). Canon was no help here (and I wasn't about to pay them $1500 bucks to come out on top of the $771 bucks worth of ink and the $270 worth of maintenance carts just so I could move the printer down a few flights of stairs) but there's a work around if you have someone showing up at your door and you need to continue with the purge.

You can bypass this message by going into service mode by holding down the navigate and load buttons whilst turning on the machine, until an 's' appears in the display. From there go to the maintenance menu, click OK, select service mode, click okay, click the right arrow until the display reads "INITIALIZE" ***then click the down arrow***, click the right button until the display reads "PARTS COUNTER", again click the down arrow, and now you can reset the counters allowing you to continue with your purge.

I wasn't about to lose my deposit on the movers because of Canon's inability to warn people that this might happen in the section of the manual dedicated to moving the blasted thing. Had they mentioned it, I would have planned (and cursed) accordingly. The following things are listed as "consumables":

3 different waste ink absorber units, suction fan, duct, carriage, mount sensor adjusting, scale linear, tube unit, multi-sensor unit, purge unit, sensor, motor carriage, feed motor assembly, fan unit. Then of course there's heads, ink and maintenance carts.

Seems like an awful lot of things that shouldn't be consumable are categorized as consumable. :-( (curious to know how this compares to Epson). Looks like the service manual is up on the Canon Wiki:

http://canonipf.wikispaces.com/file/view/ipf8300+Service+Manual.pdf

Cheers, Joe

[Czornyj]

Wow, iPF8300 service manual!!! Thanks Joe - that's what I always dreamed of, for some reason didn't notice it on ipf wiki before!

[shewhorn]

IMO it's an essential document for owning this printer! 

Cheers, Joe

[narikin]

I had a Lemon iPF8300 that would not work with USB despite 4 engineer call outs. Something was bad inside it, and no one could figure it out.  They swapped this and that, then gave up and exchanged the whole machine entirely in the end.

The point of telling this, is that I was supposed to do a purge on the faulty one that was going back, and Canon sent me the waste ink tanks etc, but try as I might, with support on the phone, it would not enter purge mode either. We ended up just wrapping the damn thing up in plastic and sending it back like that, packaged in the new arriving machines box. (yes it had to go vertical to get out of my building) No idea what state it ended up in back at Canon for them to analyse, but that was their problem I'm sorry to say.

[Geraldo Garcia]

Sorry for reviving this old post and I do realize Joe "shewhorn" last activity was more than a year ago, but I could not find a proper answer and decided to give it a shot.

Has anyone done a level 3 move before? I need to get the printer down two flights. The movers are coming tomorrow morning. It will most likely need to be tipped vertical to make it around a corner. I've started a level 3 purge. It made a bunch of pumping noises initially and for the past few hours it's just been sitting there saying "absorbing ink". Anyone know how long this is supposed to take?
(...)
I have movers coming at 9 AM and I need this printer to be ready when they get here. I figured 14 hours would  be plenty of time and have me offline for a minimal amount of time. Unfortunately the manual doesn't say anything about how long it takes to purge.

Later he said:

The official answer is that a Level 3 purge should take about 45 minutes to complete.

I am in the same situation. I managed to start the Level 3 purge process on my IPF 8400, it made some noises during the first half hour and than is just sitting there saying "Absorbing Ink... Please wait." And it is like that for the last 3 and half hours. It did not ask a new maintenance cart or anything.
I suppose Joe managed to complete the process but I would love to know how long it actually took and if he had to reboot it or something.
Anyone who had similar experiences is more than welcome to comment.

Thanks.

[Geraldo Garcia]

Answering my own question just to provide the information to others:

The printer NEVER asked for a new maintenance cart during the purge/move printer 3 procedure. I realized it expects you to put a new maintenance cart when the printer goes idle (no pumping sounds) for a few minutes, but the panel keeps displaying "absorbing ink... please wait".

After I installed a new maintenance cart the process continued. I figure it would have taken about an hour if I had realized it earlier.

[Erland]

Since you almost flood the maintenance cart, the absorbing ink is just to make sure the ink is absorbed and not going to run. Though it should not display the message that long I think.. Cant remember.

[Photopro888]

I’m about to do a level 3 move for my 8300, the yellow ink is out and the menu will not let me do anything until I replace the ink. Anyone know if there is a work around for this?

A big thanks to Geraldo for your info on the MC, I would have also expected a message as to when to replace the MC.

[mstevensphoto]

I’m about to do a level 3 move for my 8300, the yellow ink is out and the menu will not let me do anything until I replace the ink. Anyone know if there is a work around for this?

A big thanks to Geraldo for your info on the MC, I would have also expected a message as to when to replace the MC.

there is no workaround, it is one of the single stupidest crappiest most anoying things. I had three ink tanks low before my move and thought "yay" that will be less ink wasted. NOPE. you gotta replace the tank and pump a bunch of new ink through to purge the system. I will never move another printer. sell and buy. let it be someone else's problem.