OEM refillable carts for the MG8220

jnug

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Have a new MG8220 and have been using an Epson Artisan 837 for about a year. Starting to have some issues with the 837 which prompted the 8220 buy. Figured I better get one while I could.

Now when I first got the 837 I was going to go all in on cart refilling. Two things stopped me:
The aftermarket inks seemed a far cry from the Claria inks. Claria inks are costly but I did not read many good reviews for aftermarket replacements.

Resetting carts seemed much more problematic for the Epson Artisan series carts than I liked. So I have just only bought Claria carts on sale to at least save something.

Did a search here on the 8220 and there is not much to be found. But I read what there was. I see folks I think opting for the 525/526 carts instead of the 225/226 carts. Not sure why though. Are the 525/526 carts clear while the 225/226 carts are opaque? Is that the dif or is it something else? Also not sure about capacity but I think Canon only make a high cap black cart and standard cap for colors as opposed to the Epson system which has high cap carts for colors and black. Do I have that right about the Canon Carts and capacity?

Are the after market inks available for Canon closer to the OEM quality or is there as big a dif in Canon OE vs AM as there is in Epson Claria OE vs AM? How about hassles with resetting the carts. Smooth process with Canon or problematic?

Thanks for the help. This is my first Canon printer.
 

turbguy

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I've been using an Artisan 800 for over two years on a CISS system. Resetting the carts is easy. What's your issues with the 837??
 

jnug

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It is starting to blotch light magenta. Head cleaning cleared it up for now. But this is a known issue (not related to the light magenta color). Once it starts, it can be tough to control.

As for resetting the carts, at least for the 837, success appears spotty. It might be because it is two generations past the 800 giving Epson, renowned for doing whatever they can to have ink issues kill your machine, all that extra development time to make cart resetting more difficult. I would definitely have bought an 800 if I could have found one when I bought the 837.

Epson's whole approach to the machine seems counterproductive. Why for example build in a clock that will obsolete what can be a perfectly good machine when in truth what they should prefer is to have the customer sucked into buying ink carts as long as possible.

The other problem with the 837 is that the ADF is so bad that it is almost unusable. It it nice to have an ADF on a machine like the 837. But you have to use it carefully. You are definitely better off trying to feed the ADF one sheet at a time as opposed to putting the stack at whatever size into the ADF and hoping that the machine won't pick up the whole stack for one thing.
 

PeterBJ

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Did a search here on the 8220 and there is not much to be found. But I read what there was. I see folks I think opting for the 525/526 carts instead of the 225/226 carts. Not sure why though. Are the 525/526 carts clear while the 225/226 carts are opaque? Is that the dif or is it something else? Also not sure about capacity but I think Canon only make a high cap black cart and standard cap for colors as opposed to the Epson system which has high cap carts for colors and black. Do I have that right about the Canon Carts and capacity?

Are the after market inks available for Canon closer to the OEM quality or is there as big a dif in Canon OE vs AM as there is in Epson Claria OE vs AM? How about hassles with resetting the carts. Smooth process with Canon or problematic?

Thanks for the help. This is my first Canon printer.

Newer Canon printers and cartridges are regionalised, meaning that a printer will only work with a cartridge for its region. Your printer is region 2 = North America. In Europe the region is 5.

For newer Canon printers the region can be seen from the third digit in the type number: Mg8220 and for the cartridges it is the first digit in the type number: PGI-225/CLI-226. The European PGI-525/CLI-526 cartridges are identical to the American cartridges except for the chip. This is why you will often see a Canon cartridge named for instance PGI-x25 in many forum posts.

The PGI-x25/CLI-x26 cartridges are opaque and a bit difficult to refill. The previous generation of cartridges the PGI-x20/CLI-x21 have a window to the ink reservoir, making them much more refill friendly. The two generations have the same dimensions and capacities, so windowed cartridges can be used in stead of opaque cartridges if you transfer your chips to them. The chips are coded for both colour and type so be careful when transferring chips so they are not mixed up. A chip from an opaque magenta cartridge should go to a magenta windowed cartridge, and so on.

There are no problems with resetting the chips on this type of canon cartridges, You will need a resetter for PGI-225/CLI-225 cartridges, whether you transfer the chips or not. Both the printer and the resetter only see the chip, not the cartridge it is attached to.

The opaque and windowed cartridges only come in one capacity. IIRC it is 10 ml for the dye (small) cartridges and 19ml for the pigment black (large) cartridges. A newer series of Canon cartridges, the PGI-x50/CLI-x51 come in both normal and XL types.

A brand of refill ink that is preferred by many refillers is Image Specialists. It is sold by Precisioncolors. You can get both bulk ink, a resetter and other remedies and windowed cartridges for North America, either raw recycled or cleaned and ready to use with the proper chip attached. You also find instructions.

If you buy the ready to use cartridges I recommend that you also buy some zero clearance plugs and some aluminium tape. Some Canon printers have a problem with clearance, so the supplied low profile plugs might cause problems in some printers. You could ask the seller if the zero clearance plugs should be used instead of the low profile plugs in your printer.

Here are the two types of cartridges:

521-526-jpg.503


Aftermarket cartridges that are transparent do exist, but the Canon OEM cartridges are prefered for refilling. Some aftermarket cartridges leak or cause ink starvation that might damage the print head.

I hope I have answered all the Canon cartridge questions. I know nothing about Epson printers.
 
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jnug

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Thanks very much. Really appreciate the help. Was not real anxious to pay for OEM ink unless I really had to do it.

Well head off to the vendor's web site now to learn more.

Thanks again!
 

jnug

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OK, so learned something new at the vendor's site. What are people doing about refillable grey carts since the vendor is no longer offering them?
 

PeterBJ

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Did you check out the Precisioncolors site? It seems the grey chips needed for the conversion is p.t. not in store. Canon OEM chips and cartridges are used for the conversion, so what is possible to convert depends on what cartridges are available. You could then buy two dye black cartridges and relabel one of them to grey and apply one of your own PGI-226 GY chips to the former PGI-221 BK cartridge. The dyes in the dye black (photoblack) and the grey inks are the same, only the concentration is different, so there is no risk of discolouration when using a black cartridge for grey, and I think most or all of the old ink has been flushed out.
 

jnug

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On a subsequent search regarding grey, a poster reminded the OP to "remember to buy an extra cart for grey". No explanation given. But I guess this is the explanation....buy an extra dye black (not a pigment black) cart and put a grey chip on it. OK...so now off to try a search for instructions on replacing the dye black chip with a grey chip.

As for the caps or seals, I am hoping Precision's newer low profile caps have enough clearance as they seem less problematic than the zero tolerance caps might be. They are certainly smaller than the older cap.

Thanks again!
 

PeterBJ

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You find an excellent instruction for chip transfer by The Hat here. Be careful not to cut the fine conductors on the chip PCB.
 

jnug

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Took your advice regarding the vendor. He was very helpful. Noted that in his opinion the low tolerance plugs should be fine for an 8220.

Just for the fun of it, looked at his suite of products for Epson Artisan printers all the way from the 50, through the 700/800/837 series and the 1430. I have to say that my general impression is that refilling for the 837 is still a bit more complicated than it is for the Canon.

Just being able to get remanufactured Canon carts would seem to make the whole process more accommodating.

I only wish I had been able to get an Artisan 800. I think my impression of the Epson experience would be much improved if I could have gotten an 800 instead of the 837. I have to commend Epson for putting an ADF on what is a photo-centric printer. But the fact that the darned ADF on the 837 does not work too good sort of tempers my enthusiasm for it.

The Canon 6220 has an ADF but no scanner leaving somebody like me in a tough spot. I frankly only have occasional need for the ADF but constant need for a scanner and did not want to have to include a standalone scanner to the equipment.

Anyway thanks to all. Great advice in all cases.
 

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