Emptying the waste ink tank on Canon's MX860 and the same on their iP100

There is no 'waste ink tank' on either of the printers.
Why do you think there is?

Both of these printers are inkjet printers and use small cartridges filled with a liquid ink which is "sprayed" onto the paper. Waste toner ("ink") is only applicable to laser printers. Laser printers use powdery dry ink which is uniformly applied to a charged photo conductive surface. The ink that is wasted in that process goes into a waste container. However, even all laser printers do not have waste containers. Usually only higher capacity office-type systems do. Smaller home systems usually just store the waste ink in a print cartridge and the entire module gets replaced.

Hello again Ken.

To set the record straight for your posting, your Canon inkjet printers do have a waste ink pad which sits at the bottom of the machine and collects the waste ink from the purge unit when the print heads are cleaned. There are service procedures for replacing these pads and after doing so the ink absorption counter needs to be reset.

I have never looked on the net for the procedures so I cannot advise where to look. But the service manuals for the machines do have the procedure for replacing the ink absorber. The following is from the MP980 service manual, which a friend who works at Canon got for me. If you can also locate the service manuals for the respective models you have then you should be able to perform this yourself.

If the ink absorber alone needs to be replaced (because the ink absorber becomes full, etc.) and no other engine parts are replaced, the ink absorber can be replaced only by separating the print unit from the bottom case. It is not necessary to disassemble the whole engine unit.

1) Disconnect the DC harness from the logic board (right side of the machine).
2) Disconnect the ground cable from the front chassis (left side of the machine).
3) Remove a total of 6 screws that fix the switch system unit to the bottom case, and the purge drive system unit to the bottom case.
4) Slowly lift the print unit to separate it from the bottom case.
5) Remove the paper separation slope, since a portion of the ink absorber lies under it.
6) Replace the ink absorber. Confirm that the replaced new ink absorber completely fits in place and is not lifted or dislocated, especially under the pump.
7) While being cautious of the ink tube and each harness location, return the print unit to the bottom case, and fasten the screws (6 screws removed in step 2).
8) Properly arrange and connect the harnesses, install the scanner unit, and attach the document pressure plate unit and external housing.

Message was edited by: PAHU