Inkjet Goodies Bacterial Glop

[tyamada]

Here is a link to a very interesting post on another forum about Inkjet Goodies and bacterial glop growing in the BCI-6PC cartridge and what their support said about ink life.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Canon-printers/message/6135

 

[Nifty]

I don't know how I feel about this recommendation: 'The solution offered by Inkjet Goodies is to date the ink bottles, pitch the Photo Cyan 6 months after opening it, and pitch the other inks 12 months after opening (I've never had a bacterial growth in
any of the other inks, but Inkjet Goodies says it can happen after a long time.) "

I've had some ink for a very long time and not had any bacteria glob issues (that I've noticed). If someone has had this problem PLEEEEEEAAAAASSSE take some pictures and post them.

Do we know who Inkjet Goodies uses as their ink supplier?

 

[Grandad35]

Could someone post the Inkjet Goodies link? I am not a member of Yahoo and I refuse to sign up with any site that collects personal data and sells the information.

 

[Nifty]

Could someone post the Inkjet Goodies link? I am not a member of Yahoo and I refuse to sign up with any site that collects personal data and sells the information.

Oh... um... then I guess you want me to remove you from the Nifty-Stuff daily mailing list?

Yeah, I hate Yahoo's system. If I could find a way to make this forum work so people could reply to posts by hitting reply in their email then I could get a million people to convert.

 

[tyamada]

Grandad35:

Here is the link you requested: http://redrockinnovations.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=SFNT&Store_Code=IJG

 

[tyamada]

Additional information on the problem with injet goodies ink.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Canon-printers/message/6152
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Canon-printers/message/6153

 

[BlasterQ]

We have a nifty-stuff daily mailing list?!?!

 

[Nifty]

BlasterQ, we don't have a "daily mailing list" or a daily digest. You can subscribe to forums to get notified of replies. I'm looking into ways to get daily digests, etc. For more, see here: http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=223

 

[Grandad35]

As usual, I apologize in advance for the length of this post. It's a good thing that I don't have a real job so that I can play with ink and refilling carts to answer Rob's request for a photo of some (maybe bacterial) glop.

I have been having an increasing number of problems with some of my refilled photo magenta carts - to the point where I was sometimes only getting about 10 (8x10) color photo prints before running into banding on PM. My cyan has also recently began to periodically exhibit light banding. As a test, a complete set of partially used InkGrabber carts was installed. This fixed the PM and cyan problems, but created a PC problem. Replacing the IG PC cart with a refilled PC cart fixed the PC problem. It is important to note that:
1. When a "problem" refilled PM cart was removed, the ink pickup was "dry", indicating that the cart was not delivering enough ink to the pickup.
2. When the refilled cyan cart was removed, the ink pickup was "wet" indicating that ink was getting to the pickup, but there was a problem with the ink in the nozzle area.
3. When the IG PC cart was removed, the ink pickup was "wet" indicating that ink was getting to the pickup, but there was a problem with the ink in the nozzle area.

It can be very difficult to determine which channel is causing a printing problem, and the "Nozzle test" printout may not be of much use in troubleshooting these types of problems. However, the test patterns in the extended nozzle check pattern (http://www.nifty-stuff.com/gallery/inkjet-refill-1/canon_extended_nozzle_check_pattern) are a much better indicator of a problem with a single color.

Before leaving for vacation, I ordered some Formulabs magenta and PM to run some experiments, and it was waiting for me when I returned. I cleaned a PM and magenta cart with a warm alcohol/water flush, vacuum evacuated them and then vacuum refilled them with the new inks. The magenta was refilled even though it wasn't causing a problem, as it is my experience that both colors of a set should be replaced to get the best color match on a print. The full set of refilled carts was reinstalled and the PM banding problem was gone. When the PM cart was pulled after 30 prints (for inspection only - it is still printing without a problem), the ink pickup was now "wet", indicating that there is now a good ink supply. There was still a slight banding on the cyan, but replacing the refilled cyan with a IG cyan cart fixed this problem (as before). I then ordered the other 6 Formulabs ink colors to continue the test with a full set of inks in a few days.

Since I had some free time, I decided to refill all of my magenta and PM carts with the new inks and to try to find a reason for the problem with the PM carts. The first step was to remove the refill screws to let the ink drain out of the exit port and into the sink. The strange thing was that the carts that had feeding problems didn't drain (carts with the fill and exit ports both open normally drip at about 1-4 seconds per drop). It was also noticed that the sponges in these carts were almost dry, even though the ink chamber was nearly full. Pulling a vacuum on the exit port (to simulate the action of the ink pickup) pulled some ink and a lot of air from the filter, but did not pull any ink from the ink chamber. In some of these carts, it was necessary to blow into the refill hole to get the ink to move from the ink chamber into the sponge chamber. Any reasonable person would have concluded that these carts were beyond hope and that they should be discarded. It was therefore decided to "rescue" them.

The 1.5" needle on a 30 CC syringe was bent slightly so that it could be inserted through the refill hole and still be pointed at the hole between the ink and sponge chambers, and the syringe was filled with a warm 50/50 mix of rubbing alcohol and water. The first cart tested was a Canon OEM cart that had been refilled about 10 times. The attached (out-of-focus) photo shows the cart after several cleaning flushes and several sharp taps to move the debris in the passage between the two chambers onto the ink chamber walls. Is this the "bacterial glop" that Rob wants to see, or just heavy ink residue? A small sample of the glop was pulled out on the tip of the needle, and it was soft and easily broken up (as verified by the ability of subsequent flushes to dissolve the glop). This cleaning technique was successful at opening up all of the PM carts, but the glop was only seen on one cart. The alcohol/water mixture was purged with several syringes of water before the carts were vacuum evacuated to remove any remaining water before refilling.

Even though the magenta carts were all feeding (and dripping) normally, it was decided to clean them using the same technique that was used on the PM carts. This photo shows a Wired Beans cart that was only refilled a few times, but which had a similar glop that was knocked out of the ink passage.

The link supplied by Panos in post #15 of this thread (http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=248&p=2) states:
{I previously reported that MIS non-archival black ink forms "precipitates", "gel-like clots", or a "phase-separation" at about 30% isopropanol.}

I didn't know if this applied in this case, and that maybe the alcohol was precipitating something from the ink, so it was decided to eliminate the alcohol and switch to a warm water purge to eliminate the possibility that the alcohol was causing the problem. The attached image is a series of 4 photos of an IG cart that was refilled at least 5 times. The top image shows that there was glop present without any alcohol. The second image was taken after a few purge cycles and shows a buildup of a dark residue under the sponge and around the filter. The third image was taken after purging was complete, and shows that there is still a dark residue present. The bottom image was taken from the bottom of the cart and shows the same residue.

I'll keep you posted on what happens with the other colors when they arrive and I have a chance to test them.

 

[Nifty]

Grandad.... so good to have you back!

Do you think the globs developed "under the sponge and around the filter" or do you think they developed somewhere else and traveled there? If it was the latter, then the sponge didn't act as a filter as many propose.

For sure, having those globs at the exit port is pretty scary. Now that we know it exists, how do we determine what causes it? Is it a particular manufacturer, a mix of inks, etc?