Hi Patrick, thank you for checking in.
I should start off by saying that I ended up taking the printer in for repair, and though the technician did not tell me what he did, he did fix the problem. But for the information of anyone else with a similar problem, the light was steady. I went over to YouTube looking for help and found a couple of videos, one on how to do a "hard reset," which I tried several times without success.
I found some other videos showing how to get any air out of the ink lines; I did that too, but it's a fiddly operation and I don't recommend trying it if not necessary (It's hard to do, and I think there's a risk of cutting the ink lines when you clamp them shut). And as it turns out I don't think it was necessary, since the ink had not gone low. - I had always thought the low ink line was at the middle of the tank; but now I think it's at the bottom, and the ink didn't go remotely near that bottom line, just a little below half.
The technician also replaced the ink pads, saying that the counter showed some 13,000 prints, and that it would have to be done soon anyway. Considering those 13,000 prints have been almost trouble-free, I really have to say this printer has performed well.
However, I really needed a printer during those particular days because I need to get some flyers out, and ironically, the cheapest way to get them done was to buy another printer - I bought an Epson 2720, their cheapest bulk ink model. Partly, this was to satisfy my curiosity about which bulk ink printer really is better. What I found out is that the Epson doesn't have a draft quality setting - I can't seem to get it to print any less than "Normal." While this means the Epson prints look better, it also means that the Canon is far more economical with ink. And draft quality has been good enough for almost everything I do, though sometimes it does look a little hokey.
The Canon is also less complicated to fill, and lends itself more easily to using off-label ink.
So the answer to which bulk printer is better is, of course, "it depends," and the answer to what went wrong with my Canon is still a bit of a mystery to me, but at least it's been solved!
