Anyone successfully refill the new Brother LC51 carts?

[kenr]

I Just Baught A Brother Printer It;s A Mfc440nc With The Lc51 Cartridge I Am Not Fimiler With Thes Cartridges And Refilling Them When I Installed Them I Din Not Notice A Window On The Front Of Them In The Set Up It Said Not To Remove Them Except To Replace Them It Would Mess Up The Ink Level Is This True ? Also The Member Drmike Said He Install A Continuous Feed For His Cartridges I Seen Thes For Different Brands But Not For Brother Where Can You Get These Ken

 

[drmike]

I built my own continuous ink system. It's simple but can be messy so don't try it unless you understand how these work very well. THe LC51 is designed to make it difficult !

 

[ardy95]

I just refilled my LC-51 cart. After I opened the outer shell I was looking at the back of the inner cart. There is a hole back there with a silicon plug in the bottom. Most kits come with an eye screw for removing the plug. I used this, removed the plug so it was at the top of the hole. I then inserted the syringe needle through this plug and it fills wonderfully. Remove needle and hole is sealed. No tape required. Works great. Way too easy.

 

[InkMon]

With ink I think it pays to buy the best, with finer resolution printers and especially with pigment ink if the pigment size is not small enouth the head can block easily. The difference between top quality ink and the cheap stuff in price is hardly an issue when you consider the savings made by refilling.

Terry

Typo!

 

[Zardoz]

ardy95 has the answer. Worked great and the next refill should be even easier! Used a 1" chisel to get the cartridge open as I found it easier than using a screwdriver The plug sealed itself nicely after pulling out the syringe.

Zardoz

Thanks

 

[fullspectrum]

I just bought a Brother MFC 240C and cracked the outer case open. It was a little difficult at first. You do need a wide screwdriver or chisel. After that I just drilled a hole in the end and filled er' up. With my leftover Canon ink!!! Works great so far. I've printed 300 pages already and refilling is a snap. Going to make a CFS system later. The fact that the carts don't move should make it easier than a Canon CFS. I have a running page count on the output of this printer so I'll post my results when it finally kicks the bucket.

 

[manky]

All you folks who have been refilling the lc51 carts how has it being going? have you had any problems with your print heads yet? How many times can you actually refill them before they go bad?

Also i am thinking of buying a set of compatible cartridges. The transparent ones that come empty with a refill hole and reusable cover for the hole. Should i buy them? do they actually work?

I would like to hear from someone who actually bought a set of them and used them.

 

[raval]

I recently refilled a complete set of these cartridges and I used a thumb screw to pierce a rubber stopper at the rear of the cartridge then inserted the syringe just enough to fill once completed I used silicon rubber to seal.

The printer I did this for worked fine for some time now it's not printing red and the yellow only prints 7 rows instead of eight when I print a test page to check print quality.

The cartridges seem fine and I believe the problem is the print heads but running the print head cleaner function about 6 times doesn't seem to help, I'm thinking of inserting a half mil of print head cleaner into the printer when the ink flows, anyone have an opinion on this or how I can clean the print heads?

 

[wagnerl]

Ok, my first refill on this unit. I use to refill some HPs and Cannons inkjet cartridges and color (toner) laser printers.

For this printer I used regular color ink that I use to buy to HPs and Canons.

The first thing, there is one instruction at the internet about refilling these cartridges that shows a wrong place to puncture the soft plastic. The middle part of the cartridge show NOT have ink. The instruction with the pictures may be seem here:
http://www.refillinstructions.com/Brother/B6.htm
If you hold the cartridge flat on the desk, pressure pump & release to the right on top, ink exit at right bottom, that is exactly how the net instruction show it, and they show the refill needle puncturing the plastic at the top left, that is WRONG. That will fill a part of the inner cartridge where it shold have only air, except for the black cartridge that there is a connection between both chambers, this is why black cartridge holds more ink. The picture (link above) shows correct for black cartridge.

Well, I didn't want to puncture the soft plastic, so I punch a tinny hole enough to enter a tinny siringe needle, I made the hole on the same position as above, but on the hard plastic at 12 O'Clock, horizontal to enter the chamber as ilustrated on the net picture, that chamber is the wrong one.

May be I am fully wrong about this inner middle chamber to be empty, but I was unable to make the ink move from there to the correct chamber, and also it seems there is some made leaking points between the soft and hard plastic connected to this empty chamber. Also, in all the 3 color cartridges I open, there was NOT a single droplet of ink or any trace that there was ink in those chambers, they are perfectly clean.

I filled it up with ink, after trying to realize how the ink would move to the "other" chamber where you can see the black lever and indicator moving, I could not understand how it works, and worse, some ink started to drip from the soft plastic junction with hard plastic at the left of the cartridge, as if there was some leaking there, I never touched that place.

Then reading this thread, I decided to follow the idea to use a screw to pull the silicon rubber few millimeters back just enough to see that air moved through the refill small conduit close to the silicon plug, then used a needle perforated the plug and injected slowly the ink, try to put 15ml, noted that NOW the ink is flowing into the correct chamber, BUT the chamber was bloating with pressure. I was afraid the soft plastic could detach from the hard plastic with so much pressure, so against all recomendations I pressed the release valve triangular shape pin, pressure decreased, fill in more ink, etc, until 15ml went inside, not before painting my fingers with ink because the pressure release at the end was releasing sprays of ink.

After install back all cartridges, the printer asked me if I in fact did replace the black cartridge, and at this time I was inteligent enough to answer yes, of course... it made some adjustments, cleaning up and went ready, then I made some printouts, perfect. The ink level now show full cartridges.

But I have few questions for your guys:

1) When you refill, do you compress 15 or 16ml of ink without releasing the air pressure? If yes, aren't you afraid the overpressure could detach the soft plastic from the hard plastic and cause leaking?

2) Did you even tought to close the refilling hole (over the silicon plug) with hot glue to make a better sealing? It would be easy to remove later for further refilling.

3) Did you ever found some other professional made (injection molding) cartridges for easy refilling, as the transparent ones made to replace the HP #10 and HP #11, when you can see the ink level for further refilling?

4) Did you even understand how that pump & release valve works? The machine rotates it to create pressure inside the cartridge chamber, so the ink could be pushed for the print heads by bare pressure? If it is correct, then the refill puncturing the soft plastic and covering with electric tape or whatever could be not a wise choice, since pressure could leak thru the hole sooner or later, right? If the pump fill the chamber with pressure, it may be certain pressure, that may be lower than the one provoked by you refilling the unit without decompressing it... right? So you MAY release pressure while refilling, because the machine will pump the correct air pressure later on, right?

5) Where do you find the Print Head Cleaner function? I dig out all the Preferences menus and found nothing.

I really appreciate your thread and posts, they finally guided me correctly.

 

[wagnerl]

I recently refilled a complete set of these cartridges and I used a thumb screw to pierce a rubber stopper at the rear of the cartridge then inserted the syringe just enough to fill once completed I used silicon rubber to seal.

The printer I did this for worked fine for some time now it's not printing red and the yellow only prints 7 rows instead of eight when I print a test page to check print quality.

The cartridges seem fine and I believe the problem is the print heads but running the print head cleaner function about 6 times doesn't seem to help, I'm thinking of inserting a half mil of print head cleaner into the printer when the ink flows, anyone have an opinion on this or how I can clean the print heads?

Perhaps the usual way.
Remove the heads and insert them into warm water, deep enough to cover the head jets but not the electric contacts. Keep there for 5 minutes, remove from the water and press gengly over a kitchen paper to absorbe the maximum water and ink from the head, you will see the strips of ink on paper, try and test. Repeat if necessary.

Sometimes heads dry up for lack of ink. Thiks is why it is good to refill or exchange the cartridges before it went dry.