Waste Ink Container

Inkjet printers clean themselves quite frequently to prevent the ink from drying in the printhead and clogging everything.

Therefore, it is essential to always shut down the printer properly, as the printhead will not move to the parking position otherwise, leading to faster drying.

During printhead cleaning, the printer blows ink through the printheads to clear any clogs.

The ink contains solvents like isopropanol that help in the process. Printhead cleaning can be manually initiated via the printer menu, but the printer also performs it automatically from time to time, such as after being turned on.

The waste ink needs to go somewhere.

Some Canon and Epson inkjet printers have a sponge or a kind of fleece at the bottom of the device for this purpose.

The waste ink container is not a typical consumable in the strict sense, but rather a replacement part that usually lasts for several years and typically only needs to be replaced every 20,000 to 30,000 pages as part of a repair. The printer cannot actually determine if the waste ink container, or the waste ink tank as Canon calls it, is truly full. There is no corresponding sensor installed in the device. Instead, a counter is responsible for the appearance of the message, and this counter can also be reset.

Some printers in the Canon Pixma IP series use a sponge or a felt, also called an ink absorber, to absorb the ink that accumulates during printhead cleaning.

If too many printhead cleanings are performed, the following message will eventually appear: "The waste ink container is almost full" or "...is full." When the latter message appears, the printer will refuse to operate.

Depending on the printer model and ink cartridge, it may happen that the ink cartridge is already empty after 40-100 printhead cleanings without actually printing anything.