Your own vacuum-refill-tool for less than 20 dollars

@CakeHole: or something like that? http://www.ebay.com/itm/RUBBER-gc-S...712?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3cef057ba0

Nochwas said:

@ThrillaMozilla:
do not worry: I use my refill tool for about 2 years and refilled more than 200 cartridges and I never had any trouble concerning "flooding the vent". The air is sucked from the inner Chambers of the cartridge into the upper part of the syringe. So a vacuum is created inside the cartrige. The moment you stop pulling the lever of the Syringe then the cartridge sucks in the ink that is in the syringe because the air that left the cartridge cannot get back in the cartridge with the ink being below the air in the syringe. See this video to better understand: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkcSrKO8dq4 (watch at 2:25)
Hope you are convinced now.... all the best

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It's interesting that you have not had a problem, because the video clearly demonstrates exactly what I am talking about, after 35 seconds and again after 2:54. The ink goes first into the sponge chamber, and only when the sponge chamber is almost completely filled does any of it go into the ink chamber. I suppose it works because there is sufficient air left in the vent to exclude ink. Nevertheless, I can't be certain from the video that some ink does not go into part of the vent structure. This is not a good thing if it happens. Assuming you have transparent cartridges, you can watch for it.

Canon does not fill any cartridges that way. Here is a new Canon cartridge:

Notice that the ink chamber is essentially completely full, and the top of the sponge chamber has no ink. That's usually regarded as the preferred way to fill. You should look at GHWells' video. On the other hand, if you're certain that no ink goes into the vent, that works too.

@ThrillaMozilla: watch the video of the "Fill Bill 2"-tool again. The "Fill-Bill" works exactly as my refill-tool and is sold for 100-225 Euro in Europe depending on the number of nozzles that comes with the tool. The fact that the ink-chamber fills after the sponge chamber has never caused any problems to me. Which makes sense: nobody would buy a profi-refill-tool for 100-225 Euros that causes trouble, be assured.
However, I really think that I may not convince all readers (which I never intended).
Remember: Before you take off the syringe from the clamp the last thing to do always is to pull a last time which induces a slight vacuum. So should there be any ink in the vent it would be sucked into the cartridge anyway after the cartridge is released. Try it out for yourself to find out...

and here is the link for the video-instructions for building the vacuum-refill-tool:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97u2GxMIsWM&feature=youtu.be

Sorry, but the voice-over is in German only.
Anyway, I think the video provides enough details ...
Have fun building your own tool...

Nochwas said:

@ThrillaMozilla: Remember: Before you take off the syringe from the clamp the last thing to do always is to pull a last time which induces a slight vacuum. So should there be any ink in the vent it would be sucked into the cartridge anyway after the cartridge is released. Try it out for yourself to find out...

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I didn't realize you did that, because you did not do it in your video. I don't see it in either video. I think that might very well save you from problems if you're actually doing that.

In your video it took you an extraordinary number of strokes to fill, and you never did get the ink chamber full. I can fill a cartridge to more than its original weight with a maximum of 4 strokes. It could be so easy if you just tip the cartridge the other direction on the fill stroke.

I still think it's an incorrect procedure, because the ink chamber doesn't fill at all until the sponge is totally oversaturated, and you are right on the edge of leaving the vent clogged. The sponge must not be left in a saturated condition. It's part of the design of the cartridge that the sponge sucks up the ink and creates a slight vacuum which prevents ink from running out and contaminating other cartridges. Also, it would be so easy to fill the ink chamber completely full, and you would have a higher capacity.

The problem is not that it doesn't work for you, but that the procedure is so close to a mishap. I don't see how you can visually check for errors with black ink, but I'll have to believe you when you say you have not had problems. I could never use this procedure for an opaque cartridge.

Give it a thought. I think a slight modification of your procedure would be quite beneficial.

@ThrillaMozilla of course you could use a bigger needle when building your own device. Then you won´t have to pull the syringe that hard. It did not bother me however. Just a training for my feeble body - LOL!
I never fill the ink-chamber completely. Go into a shop and let the seller show you an original Canon 520 or 521 cartridge. Look closely at the window in the ink chamber! The ink chamber is always filled just half - the rest is air! You do not need to fill the ink chamber completely to the top.
After resetting the ink-counter-chip on the cartridge a half filled ink-chamber is way enough. The printer will always stop printing and ask for a change of cartridge long before that cartridge runs out of ink despite the fact that its ink-chamber was only half filled.

Thanks for the information @Nochwas, probably my fault for describing things wrong but by "vent" i meant the air maze/labyrinth on the top of the cartridge and the square rubberised item you used to seal that. Was that square piece of rubber type material from any particular item. I only wonder as i imagine it has to be pretty soft to properly seal the vent/air maze.

Good find BTW for the little silicon washers/rings that sit in the orange clips the ink outlet end, i may get some of those as im always worried im going to lose them from my orange clips

Nochwas said:

@ThrillaMozilla of course you could use a bigger needle when building your own device. Then you won´t have to pull the syringe that hard.

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I didn't say anything about pulling the plunger hard, or about using a needle. I think you misunderstood my post. EDIT: Ah, now I get it. The needle size is why you had to pull so hard. Never mind.

I'm not surprised that Canon doesn't fill some of their cartridges completely. It's just a way of giving you less ink. But notice that they never saturate the whole sponge either. As numerous people have stressed on this forum, that's for a very good reason, and it's a critical, patented part of Canon's design.

You probably get a warning when the ink chamber is empty. If you change cartridges at that point and the ink chamber is only half full, then you will be refilling more often and using more of your printer's precious purge cycles to do so. But that's a minor point compared to videos that show improper oversaturation of the sponge. I think that's going to cause problems for some people.

It's nice that you have gotten good results and are happy with the method, but it could be easily modified to fill much more cleanly with less risk.

@CakeHole: I already gave you some links to rubber items on ebay you might use (see above answers)

@CakeHole see my Video for more Details: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97u2GxMIsWM&feature=youtu.be