German refill went kaput

[rodbam]

I've refilled about 5 cartridges so far using the German method & no real problems until today. My photo black getting low warning came up so I took it out for refilling & thought I would check the others & do the lot. Only two others needed topping up so I took them out for a refill. I did the black with no problems & filled it right up to full I then started to refill the magenta which still had about 1/4" of ink in & as it got to half full the outlet started leaking, I dried the outlet & continued filling really really slowly but I couldn't stop it leaking. The ink even starting coming out of the maze airway on top of the sponge chamber, it was as though I was pressurising the inside of the cartridge, I even had bubbles of ink bubbling away where my needle goes in. I stopped trying to fill this cartridge at 3/4 full & then tried to do the photo cyan which was almost empty & exactly the same thing happened I couldn't believe what I was seeing.
How have I refilled 5 cartridges without a hitch & these two were a nightmare? I've had to drain out the ink from these two cartridges & do a flush as the ink would have dried up the maze airways.
Looks like I might be top filling from now on
How embarrassing, I've just noticed I'm an inkjet master, you wouldn't think so with my post above & my hands covered in magenta & cyan ink a

 

[ThrillaMozilla]

I've seen reports of this before. It means that the pathway between the hole between chambers, and the vent is filled with ink so it blocks air. I can think of three ways this could go wrong.

1. The needle tip was in the wrong chamber. If it was in the sponge chamber, that would definitely do it.

2. The vent was plugged, or got ink in it. I guess even a little ink in the wrong chamber could get this off to a bad start. You KNOW this was true once ink started coming out of the vent.

3. The sponge was saturated when you started. Ordinarily this shouldn't happen, since the sponge should partly empty before the ink chamber starts to empty. However, if there was a leak in the ink chamber (as from a topfill hole), it certainly could happen.

 

[The Hat]

rodbam
I think your problem was that your two cartridges still had ink in the reservoir.
I have read on here that German refilling has problems if the cartridge is not
completely empty which can cause it to leak while refilling.

Next time let the cartridge run to at least low warning before refilling and see if that helps..:|

 

[ThrillaMozilla]

I think your problem was that your two cartridges still had ink in the reservoir.
I have read on here that German refilling has problems if the cartridge is not
completely empty which can cause it to leak while refilling.

Exactly. There's too much ink in the sponge to let the air escape. But that's a big problem.

1. What if one cartridge is out but another isn't? You want to be able to top up all of them at the same time.
2. Lots of people have to run with ink monitoring disabled.

Is this a general problem with the German method? If not, why not?

 

[stratman]

As others have said, it sounds like the sponge was still saturated and as you injected ink into the spongeless side, the displaced air pushed ink out of the sponge as the air traveled into the sponged side. One other cause is a blocked serpentine air vent. Make sure no ink is in the vent - if so then purge the cartridge if you can't blow the vent clear.

It could be that the sponge would benefit from a purge. I would continue to use the cartridge, as long as it finally stopped leaking, and run it empty or near-empty. I understand the logic of topping off all cartridges at the same time to decrease the number of maintenance cycles every time a cartridge is refilled and replaced in the print head. Still, refill ink is inexpensive and it might be less messy to just use the cartridge until it's marked as empty (or empty enough by your reckoning). I have found that the leaking issue is less likely if there is no ink in the spongeless side. If you want to top off, I would wait until at least this point. If the cartridge still leaks upon refill after it has become "empty", then you should purge it, since the sponge may have become stiff and not taking up ink properly.

Part of the calculus here is trusting your ink level monitoring. If people are under-filling cartridges, possibly the 3/4 fill method, and do not trust the printers ink level monitoring, then you will need to refill more often and continue to risk the leaking issue. I refill to 2-4 mm from the top of the spongeless side (after the initial rest period to allow the sponge to wick ink) and have never had an issue of improper ink level monitoring.

This is a minor problem that can happen to Durchstich refillers at some point and may be easily corrected by altering your work flow or performing a purge on the cartridge.

 

[barfl2]

I have now filled about 7/8 Carts with the German method using Octoink sqeezy bottles and Canon Ink without any problems. However today my only Canon OEM BCI-3bk was low so exchanged it for a compatible refilled only yesterday. Did a nozzle check which showed nothing for 3eBK channel 1 repeated clean slight improvement repeated a deep clean still not brilliant.

I printed a 12page black text article (not wise) quality was poor. So I pulled the cart extracted as much ink as possible, refilled my only OEM and it was fine. Which confirms forum members advice to only use OEM carts.

I do not know what was wrong with the other one partial ink starvation ? perhaps.

With regard to the other highly regarded top fill. I tried to fill the large black again a compatible cart, could'nt find a clip so just used some sticky tape on the outlet. I got it half full when it suddenly dumped all the ink onto the tray I was using causing quite a mess. I rinsed it off and dumped it in the trash. This disaster persuaded me to carry on with the German method. Not had Rodbams problem but now know what to look out for.

My Daughter has bought a HP Printer so no doubt I will in due couse be presented with those difficult 364 carts to refiill. Did somebody post that the outlet port into the ink resevoir was the apposite to the Canon i.e. top instead of bottom ?. Also is there a chip resetter available yet for the 364/564

barfl2

 

[pharmacist]

Hi barfl2,

only the high capacity HP 364 XL cartridges can be refilled exactly in the same way like the Canon CLI-8/CLI-525 etc cartridges using the german Durchstich refill method. The standard cartridges (supplied with the printer) are low capacity ones and there is NO physical connection between the ink chamber (empty) and the sponge. These low capacity cartridges are very cumbesome to refill and the only way is to drop ink droplet by droplet on the exit hole until saturated. Very slowly and must be repeated much more frequently than refilling the XL cartridges. Unfortunately there is no resetter for these carts yet.

 

[mikling]

This is one reason why my preference is still using a storage clip and top fill. If you are afraid the the sponge can become too saturated, then just place some tape over the vent hole before refilling. The key is to use proper sealing thingies, that is a storage clip of some type even including the original caps and a good sealing plug.

With the 225/226 or totally opaque cartridges, using a plug might in fact be the better method for the reason that you fill until the ink pops up through the hole and you suck a teeny bit back out. That way, you know the cart is full. If the vent hole is taped, there is no fear that the sponge will become oversaturated.

I have reports of some people using the German method that sometimes lock up the cartridge. I wonder if the same thing happened in this case.

Well it is still chocolate and vanilla and everyone has their preferences.

 

[rodbam]

Thanks all, it seems it's not a good idea to top up cartridges until they're empty if using the German method. Obviously the more experienced members here have the confidence to wait until you get the on screen empty warning before refilling whereas for beginners like me I worry about burning the head out if there's a mismatch between the low ink warning & the amount of ink that's in the cartridge. So I think I might be better off just using the top fill method for now so I can refill all the cartridges that only have a 1/4" or so of ink left in the ink chamber until I gain the confidence of trusting the warnings.
Mikling what do you mean by "locking up the cartridge"? Anyhow who am I to not follow the advice of Mike so it's the top fill method for me until my next disaster

 

[mikling]

It didn't happen to me but to someone who also had a Pro9000. When I stated locking up, I meant that the cartridge would not feed ink or banding would occur. Could this have been bubbles ingested into the head? I don't know. When he resorted back to top fill all was good again.

I have had cartridges lock up on me. Here's how it occurred. When I was tuning the inkset for the CLI-221 cartridges I took a shortcut. When I mix up some new ink to test, I have to remove the ink from the prior cartridge. Normally, I would place a vacuum on the outlet and then dip the cartridge into a pool of water and I would flush out the remaining ink from the cartridge. I would alternate water entering the maze and the tank and thus effecting a complete flush within a minute. ( BTW I don't pressurize the cartridges, because I have had tops blown off!) With a jig to the outlet and a lab vacuum, flushes happen very easily. My shortcut?, just vacuum out the remaining ink. No need to flush with water. Right?
Wrong. After I filled the cartridges, banding issues, immediately.
Fix...flush the cartridges again but this time use water to rinse.
What happened? Well I have two guesses and I might be wrong so read as speculation only. When I vacuumed just the ink out; could the vacuuming process have created foam within the sponge? With the CLI-221 I could not tell. Or, when I started to remove all the ink, did the air from the vacuum passing through the sponge begin to dry the remaining traces of ink out, making the ink appear to be thick and goopy? Thus the refill would not feed ink nicely..just like an old dried out cartridge.

I don't know whether either of the above or both or something else caused it, but when I flushed with water to remove all the ink, I was back to good printing again. I guess I would surmise that the more ink you remove from the sponge the better the result will be. Sometimes shortcuts are not good. Lesson learnt.