After years of success, the German Refill Method didn't work!

[Nifty]

Yup, same cart. I haven't tried with a smaller diameter needle, but have definitely tried super slow refilling.

I've now tried enlarging the hole for the needle and that made no difference. I then created a new hole about 1/2 an inch higher on the cart, right above the protruding clip part, and angled the needle diagonally into the ink chamber, which was pretty easy to do.

Unfortunately the ink still went into the old channel where the needle use to be and went out of the exit port again.

So, now I've tried everything except:

1) A smaller diameter needle and a blunt needle (neither of which I think will make a difference because the magenta cart and refill I use has a blunt AND smaller diameter needle and shows the same problem)
2) Purging the cart completely

I think I'll let the carts all empty during normal use and then purge them all and see where things go from there.

 

[Nifty]

Here's a pic showing the original German hole filled and the new angled entry point:

 

[The Hat]

Rob I really think your pissing up a rope with the new hole idea and the air maze
on your yellow cartridge is completely saturated with ink that will cause you problems later too.

Flushing is only answer to the cartridges that are giving you problems and a complete rethink on your filling procedures,
its not working for you and until you correct the problem it will only get worse and possibly extend to the rest of your cartridges as well sorry.

Have another look at pharmacist tutorial again (just for a refresher) and see if your skipping one or two steps that are not very obvious.

http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=26249#p26249

 

[ThrillaMozilla]

For the guys who stubbornly think I inserted the needle wrong, please see this image below.

We believe you that you know how to insert the needle. But you also posted proof that at least once you inserted it wrong, so I have to think it is at least possible that you might have made a mistake. So it seems like a good idea to keep this in mind as one possible explanation.

For whatever reason, the channels for air to escape are blocked because they are saturated by ink. The ink chamber is empty, which proves that lots of air entered through the vent when the cartridge was in use. For whatever reason, that channel is now blocked by ink. You just posted visual proof that the vent is blocked. How do you think it got blocked initially? Again, keep in mind that it could not have been blocked when the cartridge was in the printer.

Now you definitely need to clean out the vent (and make sure it doesn't get blocked again), and you need to remove some ink from the sponge. You might even suck in a little distilled water or cleaning fluid through the vent, to clean out the upper chamber.* If the sponge actually gives up its ink (and cleaning fluid) to a paper towel (and I have no doubt that it will, you know the sponge and vent are OK. Then you can try reinjecting ink into the ink chamber. If it works, you're done. If it doesn't, then you can clean the whole sponge if you want. But you might want to start with a little selective cleanup.


* Get a little flexible plastic tubing that will fit onto the exit port. Inside that you can stuff one or two smaller sizes of tubing, to fit this to a syringe. Glue it all up if you want. Now you have an adapter that you can use to suck a little fluid directly through the sponge. Cover the Durchstich fill hole and it will come directly through the vent. This is a great way to flush a sponge, by the way. You just use a little clean distilled water instead of gallons of impure tap water. There's less waste, and you don't have to pass tap water through your print head.

 

[Tudor]

Yup, same cart.

You mentioned that you had the same problem with another cart (at least). Did it have those fibers in the ink tank too? It's possible that those fibers are wicking ink into the sponge and, at the same time, form a kind of plug of ink/fibers. Air doesn't have a clear path outside the ink tank, but ink does (through the fibers filled with ink, same viscosity), so you fill the sponge instead of the ink tank. The same thing can happen if you use a big diameter needle and it's too close to the bottom of the cartridge (even without those alien fibers).
I tried recreating your situation with a cli8 and was successful only when the sponge was full of ink and/or with a 18 gauge needle stuck to the bottom of the cartridge. But I had no fibers connecting the two chambers...

 

[Nifty]

Good questions!

I recently noticed the fibers too for the first time, but they aren't consistent with the other carts with the same problem. I think they are only in this cart because:

1) I'm using a sharp needle which grabs them more
2) During all the testing I've been doing way more inserting / removing with this cart than ever before in any other carts.