I picked up a IPF8400 printer that has sat for two years unused. I am fighting some errors that I need your input on.
I have put two new heads in the printer. But the printer still asking for a new Right Head.
I have installed new ink for all the colors.
The lines for the right head are empty if ink, the left lines are full of ink. Don't know why unless the purge unit is bad. How do I test that?
I am now stuck at " Absorbing ink please wait" on the screen. It remains here for a long time. I cant stop it. I have to pull the power plug to get out of this. However it returns to this when I start the printer again.
In Service Mode I can't do any test prints. It will do a Nozzle test.
Any tips and help will be greatly appreciated.
I do have some specific advice at the end, but first some observations are in order.
I'm sorry to say it, but it sounds like this may be a good example of why one shouldn't buy a used printer unless one has first turned it on, connected it to a computer, and used the computer to make it print a complete and correct nozzle check.
Two new heads cost what, about $600? New ink for all the colors, using the smaller of the ink cartridges this printer uses, would cost about $2000 at B&H. So for $2600 plus anything you may have paid for the printer itself, you have a printer that's between six and ten years old, that may never work. Maybe you got the printer itself for free, and the ink on eBay for half-cost. That's still $1600 spent with no idea whether you can--much less how much cost, time and effort it would require to--make the iPF8400 print. Currently a brand new Pro-4100 (the iPF8400's two-generations-newer successor) is $4516, and it would come with as much ink as you've bought for the iPF8400.
It is entirely possible that one or more logic boards inside your iPF8400 may need to be replaced. That would run a real risk of more good money going after bad.
The advice
If the printer was sold to you as working, think about whether you can return it and get a refund--and maybe even present a claim for the money spent trying to make it work.
If you can find a Canon printer tech who can examine your iPF8400, even for a few hundred dollars, that's probably your best move at this point. Not many people here are qualified to give you detailed advice.
Otherwise, you might want to look for basic, inexpensive things you can do to try to make the printer work. Occasionally problems are as simple as a loose or dirty electrical connector. Any place things plug together should be checked and, if practicable, cleaned.
You might want to look for a physical reason why the lines for the right head are empty. Is there a discernible clog somewhere? Can you observe any differences between the lines that filled and those that didn't?
Hopefully that or what someone else can suggest will get the printer working. If not, then more generally, think carefully about at what point it makes more sense to give up and consider this an expensive lesson learned, instead of plowing more money and time into something you may never fix.
