IP5200 refill, not happy with image quality

[PeterBJ]

Congratulations with solving the cartridge problems.

When printing photos printer, ink and paper work together as a system. Using the ip5200 with OEM ink and paper produces excellent results, but the materials are expensive. I think you will now find that the combination of the iP5200 and IS inks and Sihl paper also is very good and the cost is only a fraction of the cost of using OEM materials.

I think your cartridges that caused the problems might not be irreparably damaged, but instead were over dried after the flushing and reconditioning. It can be very hard to wet the sponges with ink if the sponges are too dry. Slightly moist is much better. Compare a rag, a rag that is completely dry is difficult to wet, a slightly moist rag absorbs water readily.

I have bought some empty PGI-5/CLI-8 cartridges from Octoinkjet UK and with the exception of one PGI-5 cartridge the ink outlets were still wet with ink. Using the German method with squeeze bottles, 2" 21g sharp needles and IS/KMP inks i refilled these cartridges without flushing, reconditioning and drying. The refills were without problems and the cartridges also performed flawlessly after the refill.

The dry PGI-5 cartridge was flushed with demineralized water, as I also live in a hard water area, followed by a short rinse with pharmacist's conditioning solution and dried using ghwellsjr's paper towel method. I didn't dry the cartridge completely, but only wicked most of the liquid from the cartridge. The ink outlet was still slightly moist, checked by touching the ink outlet with a dry piece of paper. This cartridge was also refilled without problems and performed well.

 

[Photofan1986]

Well, unfortunately, nothing is really solved.
The cart that was not cleaned showed a great colour shift because of the residual original ink present in the cart. So I had to flush it.
To do so, I used demineralized water only, and the procedure shown on the video. I did it slowly to avoid damaging the cart.
After that, I let the cart dry and refilled it. Well, though luck, stripes are back! Which means that my problem was not hard water, but something else.

Just to make sure, I put the original Canon carts in the printer, and had to notice that the results are PERFECT.
I'm really becoming tired of this. I just can't get good IQ with refilling. It might be satisfactory for most, but for me it's not.
What I wonder is whether I'm still doing something wrong or if others are less regarding on quality after refill. Because while the results are certainly usable, it's nowhere near the quality of the OEM inks.

 

[The Hat]

It’s really a pain in the butt when something keeps on happening and the cause eludes you time and time again.

There are many way to purge the ink from these OEM cartridges and if you were following Mike’s excellent way then you should have ended up with a cartridge which was in perfect condition, so the only thing I can add is are you drying the sponges out to much ?

As you have this print problem now for quite some time, have you discovered which colour is causing the problem or have all of the colours got stripes in them.

If you change to many thing at once it get hard to see the forest for the trees so now that you get the stripes back again try and isolate the problem by finding out which colour is causing the problem.

Use this CYMK chart and print it out then you might be able to see just how many colours are affected by the stripes because of the way it’s laid out with each colour separate and then mixed with another colour the troublesome cartridge should become much easier to identify..

 

[PeterBJ]

This behaviour is not typical of flushed and refilled Canon OEM carts. They are actually recommended as the best for refilling, and many members refill them without problems, so something goes wrong with purging and/or drying and/or refilling. Could you describe the methods you use and also upload a scan or photo of one of the refilled problem cartridges?

Maybe some of the links in this post will be useful?: http://www.printerknowledge.com/threads/has-this-happened-to-you.8600/page-2#post-68176

If I remember correctly you mentioned using the German method for refilling? Maybe the top fill method will work better for you? It is certainly worth giving it a try.

 

[Photofan1986]

@The Hat : Thank you. Yes, I use this chart to check whether there's something wrong. I'd say the problem is mainly in the magenta but the cyan is also affected. Yellow and black seem to behave normally, but I have a theory.
The 100% patches look good for all colours, with no stripes. Where problems begin is from 80% down. It's barely noticeable at 80%, and clearly visible at 60 and 50% density.
Well, I'm not sure how the printer produces those lighter tones, but if I remember correctly (from reading somewhere around here), the lighter colours are coming from smaller ink drops compared to larger drops for the darker colours.
Black and yellow don't use those smaller ink drops (right?), so there's no problem. But magenta and cyan do so it seems like the ink is too "thick" to get through the smallest nozzles, resulting in stripes in the lighter tones. Does that make sense?

@PeterBJ : I use top refill method. I think I will give German method a try. Actually, I was using German method before on my MP540 and I had no problems from what I can remember.

Anyway, many thanks for taking the time for helping me out. Really appreciated

edit: sample image added

 

[PeterBJ]

I suggest you stay with the top fill method. I thought you were using the German method. When filling the ink chamber using the German method air can only escape through the sponges. The escaping air can break down an important ink bridge between the ink- and sponge chambers, hence the advice to maintain pressure on the syringe/squeeze bottle when withdrawing the needle.

How do you perform the top fill? Here is my favourite way of topfilling, described by mikling. First fill the ink chamber 25-50% with the vent open, and then seal the vent with tape, sticky fix, your thumb or other and then top up the ink chamber and sealing it with a silicone plug, and finally removing the vent sealing. Link to post here: http://www.printerknowledge.com/threads/top-filling-method-for-canon-cartridges.5534/#post-40047

I guess the video about flushing is the one uploaded by Tudor. I have just watched it and I agree with this instruction.

This leaves drying of the cartridges the most likely cause of the problems in my opinion. I think the cartridges are too dry. Try refilling the flushed cartridge when the sponge is still slightly moist. Else pharmacist's conditioning fluid could be used to restore the cartridge to good working order. Recipe here: http://www.printerknowledge.com/threads/top-filling-method-for-canon-cartridges.5534/#post-40047

Instead of a final flushing the cartridge with demineralized water, use pharmacist's conditioning fluid instead, and refill the cartridge while the sponge is still slightly moist.

Did the cartridge that was refilled without purging behave properly apart from the colour balance problem? If so the remaining ink could be removed by sucking it out from the ink outlet using a purge clip or wicked out using lots of kitchen paper, and the cartridge refilled again. After this second refill there will be no more colour cast caused by a mixture of OEM and IS ink. I admit you waste some ink this way, but you don't change the sponge properties by purging and (over) drying. Maybe worth trying?

 

[Photofan1986]

So I'm back after having used much, too much magenta ink on testing. I ordered another set of inks from oktoinkjet, and did some more tests.
I flushed a cart with Pharmacist's solution, and did not let it dry too much, I just use the syringe to blow the water out of the sponge. Then I filled the cart from the top.
Nope...problem remains. Then I did it again, but closed the refill hole and tried german method. Same result.

I printed a nozzle check pattern on high resolution paper and made a 1200dpi scan of it. It's a huge file, so be careful.
http://www.pictureshack.us/images/98893_nozzle_check_high_res.jpg

That's exactly what I am getting whatever I do. Switching back to Canon oem inks give me perfect results.
It seems like the ink droplets are not oriented correctly, as if the ink did not react as it should to the printhead. What do you think? To me, it does not look like ink starvation.
To second that, printing a big sheet of dark magenta works flawlessly. It's in the light shades that I've got a problem.

I am beginning to wonder whether there might be something wrong with the Octoinkjet inks.

 

[PeterBJ]

Something went wrong with the upload of the nozzle check. I only see a thumbnail of 2.8kb, 125x124 pixels. Maybe the file size exceeded the allowable limit? You could try cropping the image to include only the regular and light magenta stripes.

Your test procedures seem reasonable to me, changing only one thing at a time, so I agree that there might be a problem with the print head alignment. You could try doing a manual print head alignment using IS inks. It might also be a good idea to use the Sihl photo paper instead of plain paper for the manual print head alignment. Maybe different ink properties will need other alignment settings. I haven't noticed any problems using IS inks, but it is a long time since I had OEM inks in my iP5200, so my last print head alignment was done using IS inks.

I am on a holiday visiting family in another part of the country, so sadly I cannot do any testing at the moment.

 

[The Hat]

Can you do a nozzle print using OEM ink so we can see the differences in the two please ?

Do one head clean before using the OEM ink in the new nozzle check.

This is just not making any sense at all because the test print you printed and then uploaded looks perfectly ok to me !

 

[PeterBJ]

I am now able to see the uploaded nozzle check. The only things that look normal to me is the pigment and dye blacks. The pigment black shows a regular grid, and the photo black shows regular ink dots.

The two magenta and cyan stripes show a strange zig-zag or herringbone pattern, and yellow is just blurred, maybe this blur is caused by the low contrast between yellow and white, and the less than excellent display on my laptop.

As suggested by The Hat please also upload a nozzle check made with OEM inks and the same scanner settings for comparison.

The strange patterns could be scanner artefacts, so try also scanning the nozzle checks using another scanner resolution setting.