My MAXIFY 5350 is on refill ink

mikling said:

Got off the phone with someone trying to explain how ARC chips work and people always THINK there are real sensors in the cartridges.
I gotta repeat.....people just need printers that when the ink runs out, they stop, then fill back up and to hell with what the chip says.

Long time ago, I indicated that these machines have sensors to detect ink inside the printhead. I think Hat found out himself that these sensors work. So darn!...forget about chips with these transparent carts. Fill the carts when you are done and top off when necessary and just let the printer run and run till it is out of juice. I think that is the printer we want....this chip nonsense about ink levels which are all FAKE anyways.

I tell you, there are more issues about CHIPS and its related functioning in refilling than ANYTHING else. To Hell with Chips especially Epsons. This is where the Maxify is the hidden gem provided you can get it running like a clock. Mine has.

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Agree on the chips for the Maxify.

When starting with this printer I wanted to explore 2 solutions:

- transparent carts without ink monitoring: in this case almost any chip is OK, and the one-times who stay in an unknown state (?) are maybe the best (although mine kept this ? while the ones of @The Hat went to X and I suppose he had to push the red button, and we don't know the long time behaviour of the printer in these situations).

- refilled OEM's with ink monitoring (ARC's or one-time): in case the refillables did not handle the ink as they should.

In particular with the high capacity 2500 carts (40 and 80ml in the refillables without leaks etc) the ink level should never be a concern.

But maybe the bag of the "old model" 2500 is too small to compensate pressure changes and could cause the contamination observed by @The Hat , @Redbrickman and myself, and the 1500 @mikling uses does it well.
Anyway, the "new model" seems to be much better.
My printer must behave in a home/SOHO environment, not a production one.

Since I paid for ARC's I wanted to test this option, not sure if I will need them.

I only have to find out now why I need to clean the cyan so often to have my Maxify runnung like a clock too .

@palombian - I think you hit the nail on the head when you said it may be the ink or the fact it mixed with the OEM ink, to me it's the most likely cause.

Redbrickman said:

@palombian - I think you hit the nail on the head when you said it may be the ink or the fact it mixed with the OEM ink, to me it's the most likely cause.

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Since you bought from octopus-office.de and it is OK.
Altough they also suggest refilling OEM's.

Otherwise I could try precisioncolors.com .

I bought and paid for ARC chips and didn’t get them, that was my only disagreement with Octopus, and the carts leaked a little bit too, but nothing to get mad about, I also have a spare set of new unused compatibles from Octopus.de with the bad chips on them.

I reckon Octopus are Frigging me around, saying that all the chips are ARC and I somehow got one bad one, and when I empty the Cyan cart next, I’m going to demand a refund or two complete sets of ARC chips, I hate getting the wool pulled over my eyes, O’ and I’m still waiting on my new set of carts coming from AliExpress...

P.S. I use I.S. ink only, never OEM..

The Hat said:

I bought and paid for ARC chips and didn’t get them, that was my only disagreement with Octopus, and the carts leaked a little bit too, but nothing to get mad about, I also have a spare set of new unused compatibles from Octopus.de with the bad chips on them.

I reckon Octopus are Frigging me around, saying that all the chips are ARC and I somehow got one bad one, and when I empty the Cyan cart next, I’m going to demand a refund or two complete sets of ARC chips, I hate getting the wool pulled over my eyes, O’ and I’m still waiting on my new set of carts coming from AliExpress...

P.S. I use I.S. ink only, never OEM..

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My first idea was to refill the OEM carts, but I wanted to be a good guy and bought a set of refillables with ARC's.

Octopus-office.de - IMO smart and honest people - explains in detail how to refill the Canon carts.
But as most of their customers are good guys who dare not do this they need to stock the Chinese refillables to sell their ink.

From my experience the setup carts can be refilled up to the 2500XL volumes (20 and 35 ml).
I made my own refill tool from ballpoint ink tubes and shrink tube (this has some friction and sticks well in the cartridge ink outlet).

From what I know now I would suggest this as the most reliable and cheapest refill method, on condition you weigh the carts.
With a full set of 2500 carts you print easily 1000 pages.
After that you pop out all 4 carts and refill up to the original weight.
And, as @mikling said, forget the darn chips.

If I did not found the new version of the refillables I would have continued this way.

We printed about 40 pages (text with photos) double-side during breakfast before I could check the nozzles.
No problem with cyan.
You only have to print enough .

My Cyan and magenta have now gone to empty, I did two different things with both cartridges, I refilled both carts but only inserted the magenta, I still have the Red X on the magenta.

But the cyan declared it couldn’t identify the carts, because it was missing, and when I inserted the cyan again, I had no Red X over the colour, so if you want to rid yourself of the Red X just remove the cart and wait a minute, then reinsert, job done (See below)

I’ve email Octopus for new chips, and I now await their reply, this should be interesting, I do hope they play ball and stop Friggin about, because I’m printing unnecessary sheets just to get the chip to declear empty...

Obviously there is a difference between changing carts "without the printer knowing it" and "on demand of the printer".

I guess the cyan will revert to X soon.

In my case the chips stayed in the unknown state ? when reinserted (wich is after all better than X).

OK, refilled my Maxify tonight.
Everything went without a hitch.
Removed all 4 carts at the same time.
Refilled all 4 as much ink as you can get in there.
Put all four of them back in quickly.
Whirring for a long time.
Nozzle check.
No streaks.

Couple pointers.
Fill as much ink as you can each time you refill. This will help the cart generate a negative pressure quickly.
When replacing the tanks. Do it quickly and waste no time. When inserted these carts have not developed negative pressure as yet and as a result can tend to leak or dribble at this stage. So pop them in quickly and let the priming cycle begin asap to prevent drips.

Good luck.

mikling said:

Fill as much ink as you can each time you refill. This will help the cart generate a negative pressure quickly.
When replacing the tanks. Do it quickly and waste no time. When inserted these carts have not developed negative pressure as yet and as a result can tend to leak or dribble at this stage. So pop them in quickly and let the priming cycle begin asap to prevent drips.

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Thanks for the insights.

As I understand the need of a negative pressure is (one of) the reason(s) why Canon blocked the change of cartridges as we knew before.
The pressure is built by removing ink and not by the needle on top of the ink outlet as I was thinking before. This needle only perforates a seal maybe to an air vent that is not needed in refillables.

Octopus-office.de also advises to remove as much air as possible when refilling OEM's. But in my experience this air quickly enters again when you leave the carts outside the printer. Filling as much ink as possible is the best way in all cases.