Maintenance+Tank

=What is the capacity of the Maintenance Tank?=


 * Update 9/22/07:** The iPF5000 Service manual lists a figure of 957 ml (based on counting ink drops).

The Maintenance Tank when full weighs 1 lbs 11 7/8 oz. (790 grams) according to Tony Bartlett. An unused Maintenance Tank weighs 500 grams (different scale). So the Maintenance Tank holds approximately 290 grams (= 10.25 ounces) of ink. According to Dan Wells, "A materials safety data sheet Epson kindly supplied for UltraChrome ink (Lucia is going to be very similar) claims that it is less than 8% pigments by weight, 5-10% "proprietary organic materials", 15-20% glycerols (lighter than water), and the rest water. The Epson data sheets claim a density 1.07 times that of water, and I'd be shocked if the Canon ink (which smells like it has more glycerol or whatnot in it) is anywhere outside the range of 0.9 to 1.1 times the density of water." Using the Epson figure of 1.07 as a guess at the density, the Maintenance Tank capacity would be approximately 270 ml.


 * Addendum:** Jim Harrison has pointed out that the above figure should be seen as a lower limit:

It seems to me that weighing the used maintenance tanks will not give us any useful information due to varying levels of "dryness" in peoples' tanks. If we assume that the water and other liquids will evaporate away over time, then what are we really measuring when we weigh a maintenance tank? Among the issues are that at various temperatures, you drive off different things. So the drying time and temperature profile must be repeatable to assure that you're not driving off different components one time and not the next, etc. Some components of the ink must volatilize at different temperatures than do others.

I could imagine Canon setting things up for a worst-case scenario where a person would do several head replacements in short order and the maintenance tank would need to be able to hold not only the solids, but also the liquids from a very rapid "filling". On the other hand, for most cases, the ink would have ample time to dry out between "fillings" so the Maintenance tank might end up appearing to be very little used since (if it later hand time to dry out) it'd only have solids in it when removed. Of course, clever printer firmware could anticipate this all and allow for more ink to be put into the Maintenance tank if it was placed there gradually over a longer period of time.


 * Appearance of Full Maintenance Tank**

Tony found that the Maintenance Tank did not appear to be even close to full, raising the question about whether Canon was too conservative in their calculations and if a firmware update could allow more ink to be deposited in the tank before it is discarded. Here is a photo that he took of the "full" tank:



=Where can I find directions on changing the maintenance tank?=

In the html manual click as follows:


 * Printing Functions and Applications
 * Replacing Consumables
 * Replacing the Maintenance Cartridge