Has this happened to you ?

I have not been printing as much as I would like to over the past few months or so but I do have a plethora of spare cartridge filled as back-up if and when I need them.

I have noticed with a fair few of the spares lately that when I go and installed them have given poor ink flow after only a dozen or so sheets and I was forced to change them till I got one that worked properly.

It would seem that when these spare cartridges are not used on a regular basis that they are inclined to fail to perform as expected, and I think I found the reason why !

Normally most of my cartridges get used up within 4 to 6 weeks after refilling so they don’t spend much time sitting round, till now that is and I reckon they are suffering from the ink drying out in the top half of the sponge which is then preventing the proper air circulation that’s needed.

On one of the cartridge that I had replaced with a new one which still had half the reservoir full of ink, when I removed the seal from the top refill hole, the ink began to replenish the sponge area and immediately emptied the reservoir.

So the only thing I could think of was that the cartridge must have been suffocating from lack of air but the air maze was completely clear of any obstruction so the problem had to be in the top sponge.

Most of the time when I fill my cartridges the ink tended to saturate both sponges and that has never caused any problem before but now it’s going to mean a new approach to both refilling and storage of all these cartridges.

I have only mention this just in case some others are having similar problems and were wondering what they were doing wrong, I usually purged these cartridges after a half dozen refills and that normally would cure any problems that might crop up but not this time.

I am going to have to do a complete rethink on my refilling technique or reduce the amount of spare cartridges that I’d keep ready for use; I’d normally have two sets of CLI-8 and two sets BCI-6 cartridges held in reserve..
Click to enlarge.

I have several sets of the cartridges I use and also have some refilled sets ready. Some cartridges are used more than others, so some of the refilled cartridges have been in storage for months. I have also experienced ink flow problems that I could cure by purging, drying and reconditioning the cartridges. I don't know if the cartridges that caused the problems had been refilled a long time before use, or if the problems were caused by the cartridge needing a purge before refill and not was purged.

I have now started to put a sticker on my refilled cartridges with the method used for refill and the date, to avoid storing some cartridges too long.

I think it would be a good idea to keep the refilled cartridges in a food type plastic container with an airtight lid and a piece of kitchen paper moistened with water plus some alcohol added to avoid mold growth. Rodalon might also be good to prevent mold growth.

Interesting. How many refill sets do you'll have?

Hat, what is that line in the yellow/orange/red ink?

I have printers using the BCI-3e/6, PGI-5/CLI-8 and PGI-520/CLI-521 cartridge sets. I have 2 BCI-3e/6 refill sets, 5 PGI-5/CLI-8 refill sets, and 8 PGI-520/CLI-521 sets.

The horizontal line in the upper cartridge in the Image uploaded by The Hat is the boundary between the upper and lower sponge.

PeterBJ said:

I have printers using the BCI-3e/6, PGI-5/CLI-8 and PGI-520/CLI-521 cartridge sets. I have 2 BCI-3e/6 refill sets, 5 PGI-5/CLI-8 refill sets, and 8 PGI-520/CLI-521 sets.

The horizontal line in the upper cartridge in the Image uploaded by The Hat is the boundary between the upper and lower sponge.

Click to expand...

I see, you have quite a few printers. I was thinking multiple sets for the same printer.

Also, I was referring to the line on the other side of the cartridge (tank side).

i have had great refilling success over the past 6+ years. i take the "least effort approach", or more accurately stated "the lazy approach".

i do not keep a spare set of refilled carts. i have just one set of drilled carts, when i need to refill one i take them all out of the printer, reset them and then refill/top off each of them. i use the german method, squeeze bottles, re-setter, good quality ink and print every day.

here are my numbers:

- first MP830 died at 22,000 pages, logic board failure
- second MP830 still going after 49,000 pages, waste pads changed at 41,000 pages

total of 71,000 pages printed over the past 6+ years with the carts below:

PGI5: 216 refills, on 4th ink cart, current PGI5 has 119 refills on it
CLI8-B: 51 refills, original ink cart
CLI8-Y: 74 refills, original ink cart
CLI8-M: 83 refills, original ink cart
CLI8-C: 78 refills, on second ink cart, first cart started streaking at 76 refills, too lazy to purge

i'm at 502 refills for my MP830s, some original ink carts over 6 years old with 51-83 refills, current PGI5 has 119 refills

not sure but maybe the lazy refilling approach has some merit.

thoughts ?

J

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• Printers: Canon MP830, IP4500, MX700, MX860, MX870, MP980
• Method: German Durchstich Method
• Ink: Hobbicolors and OCP
• Misc: Squeeze bottles - so much easier than syringes

That is a lot of money saved.

Methodical said:

I see, you have quite a few printers. I was thinking multiple sets for the same printer.

Also, I was referring to the line on the other side of the cartridge (tank side).

Click to expand...

I have 10 Canon printers with print heads and cartridges installed, so I have more cartridges than those mentioned. I also have some printers only kept for spares.

When a cartridge is empty I replace it with a refilled cartridge and seal the outlet on the empty cartridge with the original orange clip attached using rubber bands or I use storage clips which I think are better than the original clips. I then refill the empty cartridge when convenient. I usually refill several cartridges at a time.

I think it might be better to store the empty cartridges and only have a few refilled cartridges in store, if you don't print very much.

I guess The Hat might have used a scanner for the cartridge image. I also often do that. Scanners with CCD sensors are good for this, scanners with CIS sensors are not, as their focus depth is zero. The curved line in the ink chamber could then be caused by an air bubble in the ink compartment.

Here is a scan of a CLI-8 Y that was top filled. There is no strange thing floating around in the ink compartment, an air bubble makes it look so. "T" on the label means this cartridge was top filled, and the date follows the Danish standard dd-mm-yyyy.

I thought day, month, year was an English standard. No doubt The Hat thinks it's an Irish standard................... That is why the USA decided to invent their own.

I reckon my problems only began from lack of use of these cartridges and not my refilling method, this doesn’t seem to happen to cartridges that are used regularly, but now that I know this can happen I going to change how I store and purge my cartridges

I am only surmising here and I maybe entirely wrong but when ink is left for long periods in the top half of the sponge it forms some sort of dry scum (Like yellow Gello) being in contact with the incoming air might help it to dry that much earlier !

So when I purge the cartridge with water it’s not removing all of this transparent gel and in fact it maybe only making the problem worse each time I purge, so I intend to mix a very small amount of fairy into the water and leave it in the cartridge for 5 minutes and then thoroughly rinse it out with clean water.

jimbo123 said:

i have had great refilling success over the past 6+ years. i take the "least effort approach", or more accurately stated "the lazy approach".

i do not keep a spare set of refilled carts. i have just one set of drilled carts, when i need to refill one i take them all out of the printer, reset them and then refill/top off each of them. i use the german method, squeeze bottles, re-setter, good quality ink and print every day.

Click to expand...

@jimbo123 does not suffer from this problem because his cartridges are in constant use and I reckon his ink doesn’t get time to dry out, and mine didn’t either when I was using them constantly also, so there has to be something said about the lazy approach, it works !

PeterBj said:

I guess The Hat might have used a scanner for the cartridge image. I also often do that. Scanners with CCD sensors are good for this, scanners with CIS sensors are not, as their focus depth is zero. The curved line in the ink chamber could then be caused by an air bubble in the ink compartment.

Click to expand...

@PeterBJ your spot on I did use a scanner for the cartridge pics and that line inside the cartridge reservoir is just an air bubble as you said !

Methodical said:

Interesting. How many refill sets do you'll have?
Hat, what is that line in the yellow/orange/red ink?

Click to expand...

I have over 65 various spare cartridges filled and ready to go but I intend to cut down on that stock pile till I can find more stuff to print on, there is nothing worse than running out of ink when you don’t have a spare cartridge available and you have to stop to refill in the middle of a print run.

Emulator said:

No doubt The Hat thinks it's an Irish standard................... That is why the USA decided to invent their own.

Click to expand...

I have enough trouble trying to remember what day it is half the time without worrying about the date format, as it is the US date format confuses me even more so !