mikling

Printer VIP
Platinum Printer Member
Joined
Jul 2, 2006
Messages
3,239
Reaction score
1,471
Points
313
Location
Toronto, Canada
From the looks of it, this is clearly a situation of overfilling. When filling, it is best to fill to the point where the sponge is still absorbing ink but is close to what can be considered full. You also need to plug the cartridge quickly after this point..like immediately. Why? After the plug is put on and the sponge continues to absorb ink, the ink exiting the reservoir side will need to create a slight vacuum on the reservoir side. The sponge will naturally absorb as much as it can under this situation and the overfill or oversaturation of the sponge will be controlled by the vacuum in the reservoir. When this is done, there might be a residual drop on the rubber pad and it will not leak out.

If you fill the cartridge till the sponge is not only saturated but is literally floating in ink and the reservoir is also filled to the max, then when the cartridge is removed from the clip, then the excess ink that the sponge is floating in will drop/leak out to the point where the sponge is at maximum saturation. Naturally the cart MUST lose this ink before inserting into the printhead. If you don't do so then and quickly put it into the printer, then what can happen next?

If you insert the cartridge into the printhead, the excess ink that wants to drip out naturally will eventually drip out through the nozzles and you will possibly get cross contamination on the nozzle plate and then you WILL have odd colors. I'm surprised this has not happened to you at this point. I have videos and the instructions recommends taping the vent hole to control the overabsorption of ink into the sponge. Alternatively you can do this quickly, a skill gained over time or use your thumb to cover the air vent to control the absorption process. These are all skills/tricks etc. that is gained over time through trial and error.

I have videos on my site and instructions pointing how to go about this. Refilling and how to do it well is literally a skill that is gained through practice. Despite the recommendations, you NEED to trip up before you get good at it. It's like learning to drive. You can watch videos galore, read so much about it, study it over and over but until you do it, you will not know what is required through trial and error. Especially so for driving in snow and ice.

This is why if you have never refilled before, do NOT try doing it the first time at a time when time is of the essence. Rushing things under pressure will invite disaster.

I always get asked, why should I reset chips before refilling? Sometimes, I should neglect to recommend that why? Because if you DO refill before and then reset afterwards, then it will be etched in your mind in the future for good why it should not be done! That's the way human brains work, you have to mess up to learn or else you have not learned anything.
 

PalaDolphin

Printer Guru
Joined
Jul 25, 2016
Messages
215
Reaction score
92
Points
127
Location
Saint Paul, MN
Printer Model
Canon Pro-100, HP 7760, RX500
Being a Software Engineer myself, I'm not happy with my solution. What I am happy with is not paying $125 for an entire set of ink cartridges but instead paying just $5.55. Refilling is not for the faint of heart; I liken it to having my own darkroom, which I did at age 16. My Pro-100 provides me with full control over printing with all the overhead that comes with it; same w/a darkroom.
 

mikling

Printer VIP
Platinum Printer Member
Joined
Jul 2, 2006
Messages
3,239
Reaction score
1,471
Points
313
Location
Toronto, Canada
If you're new to refilling don't for one minute think that what you're getting now is a normal expectation.
If you step back 4-5 years and was in the scene, it was a different world. Step back 10 years ago and you'll only a handful of refillers knew about color management. It was not well understood how the cartridges work and how to keep them going. Every single print issue was nearly ascribed to clogging and the concept of cartridge flow was not appreciated.

You need to have a realistic perspective of where we are and how we got here and how it happened. Yes, there will new things happening again, things that will dispel things we thought was true but understand this. The progress has come NOT from corporations, and looking up google searches but members of this board who have continually pushed the envelope of what was expected and we gained knowledge of what was correct. We all made mistakes, learned from our errors and progressed a bit at a time.

Like right now, I have developed a method of ink matching that even the best labs in the world cannot match even with their megabuck equipment. I have proven their equipment to be incorrect....and one reason why aftermarket matches all these years were never that good. All from home brew techniques and a little knowledge gained over years and years of experience.
 

Tin Ho

Print Addict
Joined
Apr 24, 2006
Messages
866
Reaction score
26
Points
163
Yes, I use ColorMunki to calibrate my monitor.
Yes, I use a light box with 5000K LED lights to view both the prints. Both prints were printed from the same photo within an hour of one another using Luster paper. The only two differences were that I changed the ink cartridges from OEM Canon to Precision Colors and I'm using the ICM files that match their respective ink.
Did you use a same profile or each ink used a different profile? If you used two different profiles that might be the source of the problem.

It looks like you did overfill your cartridges. Here is a trick I do to prevent overfilling. I top fill my carts. I start out to fill up the reservoir to about 80% then stop. The ink will begin to flow into the sponged chamber and the ink level in the reservoir lowers. When the ink level stops lowering in the reservoir I put my thumb over the vent to seal it. You can figure it out how this is done by trying. Need to do it quickly. When the vent is sealed I go back to fill ink into the reservoir to nearly 100% then stop and plug the hole. This is how I kept the sponge from over saturated. It worked every time.
 

Tin Ho

Print Addict
Joined
Apr 24, 2006
Messages
866
Reaction score
26
Points
163
Step back 10 years ago and you'll only a handful of refillers knew about color management. It was not well understood how the cartridges work and how to keep them going. Every single print issue was nearly ascribed to clogging and the concept of cartridge flow was not appreciated.

Many of us here and many more who are not here today were there 10 years ago. All contributed to build up the knowledge base of this forum. At one point we were all beginners. You were one too...

The fact is a Pro-100 with CLI-42s is not really different from pro9000 with CLI-8s. All being discussed now pretty much were already talked all over back then.
 
Last edited:

PalaDolphin

Printer Guru
Joined
Jul 25, 2016
Messages
215
Reaction score
92
Points
127
Location
Saint Paul, MN
Printer Model
Canon Pro-100, HP 7760, RX500
I love my Pro-100. I've never felt more in control of my photography than I am now. The photos that I thought would look great blown up do. And I enjoy printing everything that I thought was not worthy of printing actually is. And affordable PC ink makes that possible. Thanks, @mikling!
 

Roy Sletcher

Indolent contrarian
Platinum Printer Member
Joined
Dec 20, 2010
Messages
978
Reaction score
1,007
Points
233
Location
Ottawa, CANADA
Printer Model
Canon Pro-100, and Epson 3880
The fact is a Pro-100 with CLI-42s is not really different from pro9000 with CLI-8s. All being discussed now pretty much were already talked all over back then.

Well having had a pro9000 I would dispute that and have the test images to prove it.

Swapping the green and red for two grey plus unknown advances in the technolgy probably account for the improvement but in my opinion they are visible.

YMMV.

rs
 

Tin Ho

Print Addict
Joined
Apr 24, 2006
Messages
866
Reaction score
26
Points
163
Swapping the green and red for two grey plus unknown advances in the technolgy probably account for the improvement but in my opinion they are visible.

YMMV.

rs
What are the technology advances? If you can put CLI-42 chips on CLI-8 carts and use them on Pro-100 it proves by itself that the printers are essentially brothers and have a same set of genes despite they were born in different time.

OK, I agree there are definitely some firmware advances. Pro-100 does print subjectively better pictures in some way. That may be a big step forward by Canon. However, Canon claimed to use specific red and green color dyes for formulating their red and green inks for Pro9000. They are forever lost and Pro-100 can never print those spectacular ultra rich red and green colors any more. Should this be considered a step backward of the Pro-100?
 

apetitphoto

Printer Guru
Joined
May 27, 2017
Messages
180
Reaction score
176
Points
127
Location
Killeen, TX
Printer Model
Epson WF-3620 , Epson wf-7210
The only thing it proves is that they both eat the same way; That is, it would have cost too much to develop a new cartridge, especially when they had one that works well.
 

Tin Ho

Print Addict
Joined
Apr 24, 2006
Messages
866
Reaction score
26
Points
163
The only thing it proves is that they both eat the same way; That is, it would have cost too much to develop a new cartridge, especially when they had one that works well.
I like that. Yes, they all eat the same thing, despite the terminology changes such as Chromalife, Chromalife100 and Chromalife100+.
 
Top