First experience refilling and resetting CLI-271 / PGI-270

RWL

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I've been refilling for years - way back to the black only Canon printers, but this is my first time refilling and resetting the opaque Canon OEM 270-271 cartridges. I bought my inks from Precision Colors and I noted that the 270-271 cartridges use the same ink as the 250-251 cartridges.

The first thing of note in refilling is the placement of the hole for refilling these cartridges. If the plugs were a different size you could just remove the ball from Canon's original fill hole and plug that but Precision ink sends silicon plugs that require a 5/32" hole. For the XL cartridges you can drill a hole between the ball and the rear end of the cartridge (end where the retention clip is located). On the original starter / low volume cartridges that area is just dead space so you have to drill on the opposite side of the ball toward the outlet end of the cartridge.
01 Where to drill hole in 271 3-32'' drill (Large).jpeg
02 5-32'' hole drilled (Large).jpeg

I carved out the foil covering of the ball so I could locate things more carefully. The reservoir is small on the non-XL cartridges and I didn't know where exactly to drill the hole. I elected to stay as close to the ball as I could. I drilled a 3/32" pilot hole as recommended by Precision Colors and then the 5/32" hole their plugs require. As it turns out, even this close to the ball, I drilled into the sponge! The damage was done, so I filled it anyway. It took 6 ml of ink until it came near to overflowing the top. The silicone plugs require a twisting motion to insert them. After inserting the plug I removed the orange guard from the outlet. No leaks, so it must have worked. In summary, your target for the hole will be the lower edge of the print box that says "Made in Japan" for both the small color 271 and large 270 black cartridge. On to resetting the chip.

I got my chip resetter from Refillbay. The resetter that arrived was white and oval, unlike the blue rectangular one pictured on their web site. Nevertheless it looked the same as other chip resetters for the 270-271 cartridges and they had the cheapest price at the time I purchased it. This device is limited to 100 resets. There is a resetter elsewhere with an unlimited number of resets now, but at a substantially higher price. The instructions are a little spare but sufficient. I'll describe my observations in a little more detail. The resetter requires a printer type USB cable to supply its power, not the usual USB cable, so that was a surprise. The instructions don't mention that when you plug it in the green light flashes continuously. When you insert the cartridge and push it down onto the contact pins, there is a brief red flash indicating you've made contact. The light then turns to red and stays lit for a few seconds once the chip has been reset. On the PGBK 270 cartridge the light then reverted to continuous green. I think it just stayed red for the 271 color cartridge until I lifted it from the contacts. Importantly, the printer recognized the cartridges as new full cartridges, so it worked. I'll go on to the print results in the next post.
05 USB printer port on resetter (Large).jpeg
04 Chip resetter and filled 270 PBYK cartridge (Large).jpeg
 
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RWL

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I'm not entirely sure what to think of the printing results at this point since they weren't quite what I've experienced when refilling and resetting other Canon cartridges. I used a print of color bands from my print head clearing print for my first print of the two color cartridges I refilled. The cyan and magenta both had streaks in the print and the magenta was more purple than it normally prints.
06 Cyan and pink with bands.jpg

I next printed a nozzle check. The scan doesn't quite capture the true colors I see in person, but again the magenta was more purple than I expected to see.
07 First nozzle check - pink is purple.jpg


I tried another nozzle check and the results for magenta were slightly little better.
08 2nd Nozzle check - Pink-Magenta still purple.jpg


I tried a full print of my print head cleaner file and the magenta still isn't right, but the text colors I added to it look as expected.
09 Test prints from purge pattern & text.jpg


Here's what the print purge file should look like.
Printer - TestPrint4Color.jpg


Not knowing what to do next, I ran a nozzle check again and the magenta is beginning to look more like itself. Any ideas about what may be causing this? Since it seems to be getting better I'll just leave well enough alone for the time being.
10 Last nozzle check - pink getting pinker rather than purple (Large).jpg
 

PeterBJ

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The magenta cartridge or the magenta nozzle set has been contaminated with cyan most likely caused by a leaking cyan cartridge.

The cyan cartridge might have been ruined by drilling in a wrong place creating a leakage path between the ink- and sponge compartments. A such leakage path is a leakage to the air via the vent. A cartridge damaged in this way should not be used.

I don't know the PGI-x70/CLI-x71 cartridges but they look very similar to the PGI-x50/CLI-x51 cartridges which I know. Here CLI-551 M cartridges have been cut open by druckerchannel.de and here is a translation into English. Scroll down to see the images of the opened cartridges. Click the images to enlarge them. Enlarging the images works best on the original German page.

Notice that both the normal and XL cartridge have the sealing ball over the ink reservoir
. The sealing ball should be removed for refilling and be replaced by a suitable silicone plug after refill. These cartridges should not be drilled IMO. It looks from your photo like you have drilled into the partition between the ink reservoir and sponge compartment.

The last nozzle check looks better than the the others, but is grey absent? or is it just not visible in the scan due to some "Enhancment" or "Auto Adjust" of the scanned image? See this for possibly better scanner settings for nozzle checks.
 
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RWL

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Gray is present but didn't show up well. Where do you get plugs that fit the ball hole? Those to me would be preferable to the ones provided by Precision Colors with an admonition NOT to use the ball hole with their plugs.
 

stratman

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What Canon printer model?

Are you using the Low Clearance Plugs or the Zero Clearance Plugs?

The instructions for the Low Clearance plugs say:

drill a smaller hole (3/32”) first and then make a final drill of 1/8” and clean up any flashing from the drill process with a sharp razor.
Your final drill bit was a 5/32". Is that for the Zero Clearance Plugs?
 
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PeterBJ

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I use silicone plugs from Octoinkjet UK. They come in three versions, for these cartridges I use the low profile plugs. These plugs should be secured using a piece of aluminium tape.

These plugs are also available from Precision Colors, but are called "Zero Clearance Refill Plugs" by Precision Colors. Instruction for their use here. If you should drill the cartridge in a place other than the refill ball sealing hole, I think there will only be enough room for this on the XL cartridges with their larger ink reservoirs. Notice that there are also "Low clearance Refill Plugs" and it says "Useable on OEM XL Carts".

@mikling Is it possible to drill the "well" that holds the factory sealing ball and use the "Low Profile Refill Plugs" on the standard size PGI-270/CLI-271 cartridges?
 

stratman

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RWL

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What Canon printer model?

Are you using the Low Clearance Plugs or the Zero Clearance Plugs?

The instructions for the Low Clearance plugs say:
Your final drill bit was a 5/32". Is that for the Zero Clearance Plugs?

Canon TS 9020

Precision Color's web ad states they are low profile plugs and they included an instruction sheet referencing low profile plugs, but I now question whether they are the low profile plugs. See the photo below.

I followed the instructions on the sheet provided by Precision Colors, which I've attached. It is for the CLI-251 series cartridges, but since they are similar to the 271's I assumed the instructions were correct. My final drill size was 5/32". I'm not sure if that answers your third question.
12 Plugs  (Large).jpeg


Refill Instructions sent from Precision Colors (Large).jpg
 

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stratman

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I have the original silicone plugs for CLI-8 cartridges. They are the same color as those in your image. Otherwise, I cannot tell you what size your plugs are without more info for comparison.

It appears @mikling changed either his website instructions or the paper instructions you received because your posted instruction image does not correlate to his web site instructions for your specific printer and cartridge currently on his web site.

See the Precision Colors web page for your printer TS9020

Go to the tab "Instructions" and read the PDF corresponding to the "Low Clearance Plugs". As I posted above, the final hole dimension is 1/8", not 5/32".

Regardless, if the seal around the silicone plug is air tight and the top of the plug clears any obstacle above it as the cartridge moves then you are OK.

Mikling should be able to clear up these discrepancies quickly.
 

mikling

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Overfilling and contamination. Ink leaked out from the cyan channel onto the magenta thus causing cross contamination. As the ink is used up, the contaminated color will cleanse itself if it did not go up the printhead too far. The Low clearance plug while will initially fit the ball hole will end up working itself loose over time aided by the lubricity of the ink. The ball hole tunnel is tapered thus providing an upward vector force continually. This has happened to myself in the past and this while it appears convenient and will fit, personnel not understanding mechanical vector forces will not understand why it is not a good idea. The CLi-8 plus stays in the tunnel because it protrudes internally beyond the tunnel and is retained by a cinching belt action this providing excellent sealing and retention. Unfortunately there may not be sufficient clearances for the normal CLI-8 plug. The clearances seemed to have varied on prior models.

My recommendation and it still stands is that you use the aftermarket refills with ARC chips on these models. I use them myself and they work very well. Additionally on the CLI-270 /271 I have found that the ARC chips will reset when the cart is indicated low and refilled.It does it prior to empty. On the 250/251 initially this was not the case. With this, the 270/271 models also work very well. Even the Chinese have caught on to why resetting prior to empty is a good idea. Well, it has taken the whole Canon refilling space long enough o discover that after I pushed it. Furthermore, Canon had revised something in the passages within the printhead allowing lower susceptibility to compromised ink flow. Generally this has been across the board it appears. The resetter is nice but they work only very well with the XL carts and in consideration of what these printers are meant to do, the total refill cost of an XL set and resetter, is not really at the value end of the spectrum.
Remember these light duty printers will likely wear out mechanically before the waste ink tank is done. A few months ago, I saw a 5 tank 270/271 printer at the Walmart for $60 CAD ( $46 USD)....and they all pretty much give the same print quality now. At this kind of pricing, who cares if the waste ink tank fills up. By then the mechanicals are dodgy anyways.

The whole paradigm of refilling and how and what has changed with the reality of most desktops being a disposable machine. This is different from 10+ years ago when we thought that printers should be built sturdily. That has remained with real Photo Printers at the so called Pro category but for desktops, we need to reexamine what is happening. To the mfrs there's no point making high quality desktops anymore, there is no real benefit to most consumers anyways...2-3 years is all we expect of it before it will be done. Canon knows that all too well. Will that market disappear....it slowly ( maybe faster than we realize) is. The ubiquitous smartphone and the acceptance of documents and copy via electronics has changed the market dramatically.
 
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