Hey, I recently purchased some used BCI-6 Canon inkjet carts. I don't plan on refilling them anytime soon and was curious how I should store them? Should I purge and then dry them or can I just leave them as is. If I have to purge them, does that mean I need to make the refill hole on the used Canon carts? What kind of container should I store them in? Thanks.
Storage of Empty Carts
- Thread starter eixty
- Start date
- Joined
- Jun 16, 2006
- Messages
- 3,645
- Reaction score
- 85
- Points
- 233
- Location
- La Verne, California
- Printer Model
- Epson WP-4530
I just store my hundreds of BCI-6 (and BCI-3e) carts in large zip lock bags. But then when I use them, I vacuum refill them which I believe is a good way to restore them, at least I have never had any problems with the hundreds that I have already refilled that way. If you are going to inject ink into them, I cannot say, as I have no experience with doing that with old cartridges.
several months ago I obtained about 70 empty Canon OEM bci-6 carts. I purged the whole lot, dried them completely, refilled three sets for my i960 and my wife's ip5000, and stored the rest of the OEM purged and dried carts in a food container with a sealed lid. I use the top fill method, so I did make a hole in the top and this permitted faster purging. This gave me the opportunity to discard the carts I had been refilling - some OEM, old Arrow, and Hobbicolors carts that had been in used for nearly five years. Now I have three sets of carts I can totally trust and enough backup empties to hopefully last the life of these printers.
As for refilling a purged, totally dry cart, some of the colors soak into the sponge completely with just injecting the ink into the reservoir. Some have to be tipped and tapped on the table (not against the outlet port!), and some needed a bit of negative air pressure (sucking lightly at the air inlet over the sponge) to get the ink to fill the sponge. Be careful with this technique, however, as you don't want cyan or black lips and/or tonsils!
As for refilling a purged, totally dry cart, some of the colors soak into the sponge completely with just injecting the ink into the reservoir. Some have to be tipped and tapped on the table (not against the outlet port!), and some needed a bit of negative air pressure (sucking lightly at the air inlet over the sponge) to get the ink to fill the sponge. Be careful with this technique, however, as you don't want cyan or black lips and/or tonsils!
- Joined
- Apr 19, 2007
- Messages
- 8,712
- Reaction score
- 7,173
- Points
- 393
- Location
- USA
- Printer Model
- Canon MB5120, Pencil
Agree with storing cartridges in an airtight container after purging and completely drying.
Using the Durchstich (AKA German) method, if the dry purged sponge does not soak up the ink to your liking, then SLOWLY inject ink across the top of the sponge as you slowly withdrawl the needle to saturate the sponge to your liking. Do this with the cartridge turned upside down, ie with the ink exit port facing upward or ink will drip out. According to my syringe metrics, I am using about 12 ml's of ink when I refill a purged and dry cartridge. If you overfill then some ink will drip out until equilibration ocurs.
For purging, I have drilled a 2mm hole on the top of the cartridge near where the ball is located. I then seal this hole with hot glue. Others use screws.
Fotofreek is a helluva lot more adventurous than me! Sucking on a filled cartridge? Yowzaa! More power to you, my friend.
Using the Durchstich (AKA German) method, if the dry purged sponge does not soak up the ink to your liking, then SLOWLY inject ink across the top of the sponge as you slowly withdrawl the needle to saturate the sponge to your liking. Do this with the cartridge turned upside down, ie with the ink exit port facing upward or ink will drip out. According to my syringe metrics, I am using about 12 ml's of ink when I refill a purged and dry cartridge. If you overfill then some ink will drip out until equilibration ocurs.
For purging, I have drilled a 2mm hole on the top of the cartridge near where the ball is located. I then seal this hole with hot glue. Others use screws.
Fotofreek is a helluva lot more adventurous than me! Sucking on a filled cartridge? Yowzaa! More power to you, my friend.
Only applied negative pressure (sucking lightly and just for a moment) when the sponge wouldn't take up the ink from the reservoir section. This is for newly purged carts only. I haven't had a taste of ink yet!!! I don't know what the daily minimum dietary requirement is for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, or Black ink, but I'm not so adventurous as to test the issue. Once the sponge starts to take up the ink it then continues without further negative pressure at the air vent. I guess I could also use my old vacuum - the one that I use to get most of the water out of the cart after purging.
- Thread starter
- #6
- Thread starter
- #9
Froggy
Getting Fingers Dirty
I work in health and safety (hey, it's better than being unemployed) and while I don't know the dietry requirements, I do know that some brands of cyan ink contain substances (metal nitrates) that can be potentially harmful to unbourn children. However, this would require the expectant mother to sit down and drink a fair number of cyan carts.stratman said:LOL!fotofreek said:
The interesting thing is, the condition iis called "Blue Baby Syndrome" (methemoglobinemia)
I was once asked about this by an expectant mother who had actually been reading the safety data sheets for inkjet cartridges and was quite worried as she did colour printing. I gathered together a load of ink carts, put them in front of her and told her she would need to be drinking the stuff. She got the idea.
