Best practices on first-time Pro-100S ink management

[Artur5]

I used a tiny strip of double sided adhesive tape to secure the chip in place. A soldering iron can do a lot of harm, if you're not very careful, specially when your hands are not that steady anymore. as it happens to be my case nowadays.

 

[mgjsmith]

I have successfully transferred the chip - thanks everyone. Now on to another question. I have applied some paper towel to each of the carts as per the guidance I have seen here and elsewhere. All the carts weigh around 16/17 grams at present and that has not changed in 24 hours despite applying the towelling. How long should it take on average for each cart to get down to less than 14 grams. I am not yet at the long socks stage!!

 

[stratman]

The wicking action to help draw moisture from the sponge is essentially complete within a handful of hours. I found that within 3-4 hours, and couple changes of the paper towel, that the cartridge is ready to be refilled. The paper towels quickly kick start the drying process but are not for completely drying out the sponge.

If you want the sponge to be drier then let the cartridge sit out over night, or however long you want, minus the paper towel till it weighs what you want. Some use a heat lamp, radiator, blow drier to further speed up the process. I never did.

Again, the sponge does not have to be anywhere near bone dry for refilling. It's up to you.

 

[mgjsmith]

Thanks for your reply and advice. To be honest, my flushed carts have been sitting on kitchen towel now for four days and only one has dropped below 15 grams. All the others are still around 16 grams. I am going to place them in a warm window position today to see if that moves the drying along a little. Thanks again.

 

[The Hat]

I am going to place them in a warm window position today to see if that moves the drying along a little

Beware of having completely dry sponges, because they do not saturate with ink very quickly..

 

[Artur5]

Years ago I used to accelerate the drying process putting the cart in the microwave at the lowest power setting for one minute or so. That helped a lot.
Unfortunately one day, by mistake, I set the microwave at maximal power and the whole sponge became a smokey mound of greyish ashes. I succeeded in removing totally the humidity, though..

 

[palombian]

Strange, when I was flushing 525/526 carts I could bring the weight near the minimum within a few hours by changing the absorbing (toilet) paper several times.
Do you have a good contact with the outlet sponge ?

 

[PeterBJ]

I have also found that changing the paper a couple of times speeds up the drying. It still takes some hours though.

I would think that microwaving the cartridge would ruin the chip.

 

[mgjsmith]

1 - With the greatest of respect, No way am I putting my carts in the microwave.
2 - The cart sponges are making contact with the paper towel by using a screw head and rubber band as per one of the videos I viewed.
3 - I will leave them in the window until later today.
4 - Is it absolutely necessary to get the cart weight down to around 13 grams as advised by Jose Rodriguez and others?

Thanks everyone for your help and advice.

 

[PeterBJ]

I found a flushed and dried CLI-8 M cartridge that had not been used for months. Its weight is 13.51 g ± ?. So I think 13.5-14 g is fine. The CLI-8 cartridges should be physically identical to the CLI-42 cartridges so the weights should be the same.