First fill on a purged and thouroughly dried BCI-6 cart

[Grandad35]

I have always noted that the first refill on a purged and thoroughly dried cart (> 6 months in my basement) will cause the ink to be immediately wicked into the sponges - all the way to the top. I recently needed to fill a complete set of 8 colors, and found that the dye black (IS from Mikling) did not want to wick into the sponges like all 7 of the other colors did. Banging the cart to move the sponge into position had no effect. Thinking that I just had a bad cart, another cart was tried with the same result. Blowing into the refill hole pushed the ink into the sponge (on both carts), and the carts tested normal for the drip test and the blowing into the air vent test. One of them is now in a printer, and it works normally. It remains to be seen how well these carts perform on subsequent refills.

If I was using the German refill method, there would have been no way to complete the 1st fill with this ink. I have never had the need to try Pharmacist's conditioning solution, but I can see that it would be necessary for certain inks when using the German refill method.

 

[stratman]

If I was using the German refill method, there would have been no way to complete the 1st fill with this ink. I have never had the need to try Pharmacist's conditioning solution, but I can see that it would be necessary for certain inks when using the German refill method.

It has been in my limited experience with this situation that in time the sponge will take up the ink. If you need more immediate results then squirt ink along the bottom of the sponge as you withdraw the needle from the cartridge when using the Durchstich method.

It is interesting that only the dye Black ink did not perform as the other colors.

 

[mikling]

Several years ago, I also noticed this effect on the 1008. The carts still work fine despite this, you just need to be a little patient to allow it to absorb.
One reason I could think of is that in the BCI-6 days, black dye ink was still used in a lot of Canon printer for text. The effect is possibly to mitigate wicking effects/ bleed on paper when this dye ink was used to produce sharper text. The 1109 for the later generation does not display this effect.

 

[fotofreek]

I have always noted that the first refill on a purged and thoroughly dried cart (> 6 months in my basement) will cause the ink to be immediately wicked into the sponges - all the way to the top. I recently needed to fill a complete set of 8 colors, and found that the dye black (IS from Mikling) did not want to wick into the sponges like all 7 of the other colors did.

I've had the same experience with the black dye ink. I found that applying a slight vacuum with my mouth to the air vent pulls the ink into the sponge. It has never happened to me, but you just need to watch carefully that you don't pull any ink into your mouth! Next time I'll try your technique.