I have a lightly used but 4 year old Canon Pro-4000 that had the maintenance cart fill up. I replaced the cartridge and the printer immediately started throwing EC21-2F51 errors. I tried as suggested to shut it down and restart (a number of times) but it just repeated that error. Canon suggested that I replace the print head and said I could wait till I got the printer to recognize there was no print head before opening and committing to the new $800 head and that there was little risk of that not fixing the problem.
So I ordered one and had them walk me through the process of replacing it (unplug the printer, restart and unplug when I heard the head unlock). That went well, until it was filling and the printhead and again it said the maintenance cart was full and is now locked at that error. I can access the printer remote UI from a browser and it is telling me that the maintenance cart is at 90%. The tech didn’t know if that meant 90% available or 90% used, but I think it must be 90% available. They said the only thing they can do now is a $1500+ service call, which I am reluctant to try given my experience with these endless chains of problems with printers. They would not consider providing any break on the costs even though they led me to believe that replacing the printhead would be the fix.
My questions are - would it make sense to risk another $80 maintenance cartridge to see if that fixes it, or should I just cut my losses and scrape this thing? If so, can a brand new printhead be transferred to another printer - say, if I bought a Pro-1000 ? Or have I just flushed this cash? Same goes for the maintenance cart - can it be used in another Pro-4000?
Thanks, I appreciate any advice!
I would not so easily give up on that expensive printer. If their service call has guarantee, I would probably go for it. But before that you could try a few things:
i) try print head alignment in the settings
ii) Enter the service mode and try a few options there such as diagnosis, print head alignment, etc.
iii) since all this started with the maintenance cartridge, try replacing the cartridge chip. You can buy a chip online for $20 or so (Ebay, Aliexpress, etc.).
iv) try resetting the printer. I don't know how to reset the printer as the option is not given in the menu or device settings, not even in the service mode. There is a physical way to reset the printer which apparently is explained in the service manual. I haven't found it for free around (I have pro-2100). All I find are a number of third party sites which are demanding money for the pdf file of the service manual which is usually for pro-4000 or pro-4100s, etc. but not for my specific printer. I am not sure if Canon sells it itself.
Just a few ideas. Good luck.
