MiniMe wrote:
Peter I have read many of your posts in the past and respect your opinion. Correct me if I am wrong but seem to recall that you made a post that we need an info thread on reliable refillable carts for Canon.
No, I never asked for such a thread. Before I started refilling I have used compatible BCI-3e/6 and PGI-5/CLI-8 cartridges. The results were acceptable for plain paper documents, but photos had a yellow/green cast with the compatible BCI-3e/5 cartridges and the PGI-5/CLI-8 cartridges caused a magenta cast. The cartridges were brand digitalst@r or st@rink. The cartridges didn't damage my printers, and I have mentioned that I found these cartridges acceptable. I only used them once, I never refilled them. But refilling OEM cartridges with Image Specialists refill inks gives much better colors for photos, and the cost is only half that of the compatible carts.
There are many threads for Epson that provide users with alternatives to OEM for those printers but any effort to do this for Canon is met with fierce resistance.
I don't know much about Epson cartridges, maybe the refillable cartridges are popular because the OEM cartridges might be difficult to refill? The transparent and windowed Canon cartridges are easily refillable, so there is no need to buy refillable cartridges. I don't know the price of a set of transparent refillable cartridges to replace the opaque cartridges, but I would recommend getting a set of windowed Canon OEM cartridges and refill these. In mine and many other forum members' opinion the best refillable cartridges for Canon printers are Canon OEM cartridges. They are high quality, which some 3rd party refillable cartridges might be, but others are certainly not. See this horror story:
http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=7360&p=1
There are thousands of the newer model MG and MX Canon printers sold each day. Most of the people that buy them are not printer geeks like me or you and have very little tolerance to swapping 220's that they have to hunt for on ebay or other more respected retailers. Then the purging, chips swapping, plugs etc. For those lower use users refilables are a much simpler option.
The forum is here to help newcomers with solving these problems, and good low profile plugs plus aluminum tape for an extra line of defence against leaks are available from dealers both in the US and the EU. For those who print very little, I would recommend using Canon OEM cartridges, even if they are expensive. To start refilling you need to invest in inks and accessories and if you print very little the pay back time will be long. But when you have refilled one or two set of cartridges you have saved enough money to buy a new printer. So refilling OEM cartridges is what I would recommend for most users.
For the hard core geeks that want to use the newer 225/226 carts why don't we start to think outside the box. Why not drill a 3/8" hole on one side of the top of the cart on the reservoir side and glue on a piece of clear acetate?
I wouldn't dare do this. The slightest air leak into the ink chamber will cause a disastrous ink leakage into the printer. Both Canon OEM and 3rd party cartridges are made from polypropylene, a plastic that is difficult to to get a reliable bond to. The glue is critical, some hot melt glues have an acceptable bond, others not. There are also special liquid glues for polypropylene, but these contains some nasty chemicals and might be restricted to professional use only.
Everyone here needs to take a page from aaa's saga and think for themselves to provide solutions that the new barricades that the printer manufacturers are putting up, and will continue to put up against us in the future.
I think
aaa's ciss is very elegant, but it is hardly a project for a beginner. Furthermore a ciss demands that you print regularly to avoid problems. As far as I know only a few members have mastered the art of getting a ciss to work reliably with a Canon printer. Epson printers seem to be much more ciss friendly.
Hehe I've got some scrap/crap 226's and all the gear (adhesive ipad screen protectors..lol), I will start on a prototype tomorrow night. The proper glue will be the key! German refillers will need to drill on the bottom. Remember that you heard it from me first. smile
I look forward to see your design, but please post it in a new thread, we have already strayed too far away from the original topic which was about a pixma 4200.
