Best/cheapest refill sollution? Best ink? Best printer? IP5000 ?

[Inkdenata]

Hi guys! I have seen there are tons of solutions for ink refilling out on the market but I have heard so much bad critic about it! I'm even willing to buy a new printer if someone here really knows a good solution that works 100%

Today I have a Canon Pixma IP5000 and I have heard this kit should work great, is it true ? Anyone tried it ?
http://www.rihac.com.au/product_info.php?cPath=26_28_42&products_id=134

I'm really confused and I want something that is as good as original ink both in quality and uv resistant but which is the best???

Orginal ink is good but damn I print like 500 photos each month and I'm more or less out of money because of the damn prices on orginal ink! I want gallons of ink and not be thinking about the price but at the same time I don't want to loose any quality!

Any good recommendations? Best recommendation gives a free beer

Cheers!

 

[fotofreek]

Good printer - I have two of them. Bulk inks I have used for refilling are MIS and Computer friends. These are reputed to be Imaging Specialist inks and you can buy their inks in large quantities directly. Also used very successfully by people on this forum and on the printer newsgroup are Sensient-Formulabs from Alotofthings.com and Hobbicolors inks, available either on ebay or from their web site for special orders of quantities they don't show on ebay. Since I refill my carts I don't know anything about CIS systems but others on this forum can answer CIS questions.

Now, where would you like to send me my Victoria Bitters or Foster Lager?

 

[Inkdenata]

Hi fotofreek! Thanks for your replay! Hmm, but how do you refill the cartridges and do you refill your original cartridges or should I have custom made that are refillable? Have seen such on ebay and other places? Aprox how many times can I refill a original or custom made cartridge? Are there any limits? I'm new to this so I don't even know which tools to use when refilling ... Do you have some url's to sites of what you use?

If anyone have info about CIS that works 100% I'm interested to hear about it as well!

Give me your address and I will have a beer send with fedex right away

Thanx!

 

[fotofreek]

Just kidding about the beer! First time in OZ (1960) I had a stopover in Darwin and had some local beer. Not your best brew! Spent a week in Sydney and really liked Victoria Bitters so took a case back with me to Japan where I was living at the time. Last time in OZ was four years ago and traded my beer glass in for a wine glass to enjoy your excellent, inexpensive wines.

Aftermarket inks have less fade resistance than the original OEM Canon inks. Best are the Epson pigmented inks for least fade. If you are selling your prints you probably shouldn't be using dye-based inks at all. The newest Canon printers like the ip4200, 4300, etc, use dye-based inks that Canon claims have greater permanance than their previous series. That said, I refill my carts and enjoy printing lots of pics and don't worry about archival quality.

Lots of info for refilling on this forum. Original carts work well for refilling and you can also buy empty carts from MIS or get them with a Hobbicolors kit. Every ink vendor has instructions on refilling on their web sites. Spend an evening and read through threads on the forum about sealing the refill hole (special attention to my favorite way with stainless steel sheet metal screws and o-rings). Look up Grandad35's cart cleaning technique for renewing carts after several refills. Search for Howard Electronics in the forum to get the link for excellent squeeze bottles with hypodermic needles attached, or use syringes to get started. After some self-education you might ask specific questions to help you get started. Remember that the format for the forum includes some suggestions that are better than others. You will learn a lot after your first attempt at refilling. Go for it!

 

[Inkdenata]

Haha I got that But if you ever come to Sweden I will buy you a cold Carlsberg, it's the best beer ever!!! Danish but hell it's close to Sweden

So you think aftermarket ink is less good? I have read there are photoink to refill with and they say it should be as good as the original ink?!

I have actually spent like 10 hours reading about ink for my Pixma IP5000 but everyone says different things and I don't feel like trying 10 different items before finding the right solution! That's why I ask here, not because I'm lazy.....

Is there anyway to tell (as you have the same printer). What should I buy to bot be disapointed, what would you have bought? Are you 100% happy with the stuff you use now? Is it UV resistant and as good as the original ink ? If, tell me what you have and I will order the same but not blame you if I don't think the same as you

There are to much rumors, too much opinions, too much too choose between! So I just get more confused the more I read. Right now I have most trust in this kit to be honest

http://cgi.ebay.com/CISS-suits-Cano...ryZ16200QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

But that's what the seller says and a seller would never talk bad about his own product that's why it's interesting to hear what a consumer have to say about it! But I'm open minded and as you seem to be really satisfied with your ink and cartridges I would really like to know exactly what you use and go for that!

Thanks in advance mate!!!

 

[ghwellsjr]

I hope you have been saving your Canon cartridges because they are the best and easiest to refill. And the easiest and best way to refill is with vacuum. You won't need to poke any holes in the cartridges or worry about resealing them or having them leak. You won't have to worry about cleaning or renewing your cartridges. You can refill a dozen of one color at a time. See this article for full details, including videos and pictures:

http://www.nifty-stuff.com/vacuum-fill-canon-cartridges.php

Now is the best time to start down this path because you won't have to buy any syringes, plugs or squeeze bottles. All you need is a $30 vacuum chamber and a $40 manual vacuum pump or a $130 electric pump.

I use Inktec ink because it stood up the best in fading tests (next to Canon of course). See this link:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1003&message=12198835

I started using MIS inks but got scared away from it for use in the iP5000 printer with links like this:

http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=6333#p6333

I next went to Formulabs but their pigment black ink has a lot of dye black mixed in with it and will run on plain paper when it gets wet. I also got a sample of Hobbicolors pigment black and it has the same problem.

Finally, I settled on Inktec which seems like the perfect refill ink.

 

[Inkdenata]

ghwellsjr This tutorial is totally awesome! But yes I have throw away all my old original cartridges But hell I can go get some new ones!

The only thing I wonder is don't you need to do any holes on the cartridges? Are there holes original that suck the ink into the cartridges? Or do I need to remove the "original tape" or anything like that? Would any vacum chamber do ?

How long can I have these refilled cartridges standing in the closet and can I refill old cartridges that are totally empty and haven't been used for a long time?

Thanks once again!

 

[ghwellsjr]

You don't need to add any holes. The ink is sucked into the air vent hole on the top of the cartridge when you place it into the ink upside down but you have to make sure the ink outlet port is sealed off or you'll just suck in air. The original tape that you removed when you installed the cartridge for the first time is already removed when you refill, there is no additional tape that needs to be removed.

You can use any vacuum chamber. If you have a large vacuum chamber, you would probably want to put the ink and cartridges into another container so that you don't have to use so much ink. Ideally, you would want to have as much of the bottom of the container filled with cartridges as possible, but it works even with one cartridge.

I have refilled cartridges that have been around for years with no problem. One of the major reasons why cartridges fail is they get air in the sponge material. The cleaning and renewing process gets that air out but then you have the problem of getting the water out without introducing more air. When you pull a vacuum on a cartridge, you are sucking all the air out and when you release the vacuum to allow ink in, it totally saturates the sponge material before it reaches the reservoir.

It's really better if the cartridges are totally empty because when you pull the vacuum, a little bit of residual ink in the sponge can be sucked out of the cartridge into the new supply of ink. I don't worry about this because the old stuff is the same color as the new stuff except it might be a little more concentrated, but it gets overwhelmed by the large volume of fresh ink.

 

[fotofreek]

Ghwellsjr shows us an extremely sophisticated and very successful way of refilling carts. The videos and instructions are excellent. I am certain that this approach is ultimately better than the technique most of us use with creating a fill hole or opening the factory fill hole and using a syringe or squeeze bottle.

I would stress that I am not disagreeing with his approach. For a person who is looking for the cheapest solution, however, a dollar's worth of stainless steel screws and O-rings and a dollar syringe is the only expense of getting started, over and above the cost of purchasing bulk ink. In addition, the quantity of ink necessary to simply get started with refilling would be inadequate to provide the level of ink necessary for the vacuum chamber approach to work.

If my printing volume were greater I would invest in an electric pump and premade vacuum chamber as I would be able to fill multiple carts at once for a great savings of time. Until then, I will stay in the "horse and buggy" mode with my $!5 dollars worth of Howard squeeze bottles and a few dollars worth of screws and o-rings. The time expended for a single refill on the fly - remove the cart from the printer, put gloved finger over exit port, open fill hole, give the Howard bottle a few squeezes, replace the screw/o-ring, let drip and blot the rim of the outlet port, and replace in the printer - is very little more than unwrapping a new OEM cart and replacing the empty. Yes, I do have three or four sets of self-filled backups, and when I am in a hurry I use them instead.

For a beginner whose printing volume is not large and whose cash is limited I would suggest the "horse and buggy" approach - the KISS approach - (keep it simple, stupid). For someone who prints large volumes and has decided he/she wants to continue refilling I would certainly suggest Ghwellsjr's approach. In addition, I am impressed with the sophistication and esthetic quality of the vacuum technique.

 

[ghwellsjr]

Yes, I forgot to mention that the vacuum approach is quite messy. It isn't worth it if you are only going to fill a few cartridges of each color. It also wastes a fair amount of ink--that's where the mess comes from. I am able to refill about 75 BCI-6 cartridges with one liter of dye ink in less than 5 hours (including setup and cleanup) and about 33 BCI-3eBK cartridges with one liter of pigment black ink in about 3 hours. That comes to less than 4 minutes per BCI-6 cartridge. This method is really only for those that want to do a lot of refilling like Inkdenata who prints 500 photos a month.