Hi guys & any girls,
I've just joined the forum but have been keeping an eye on threads with interest, although I must admit had forgotten about you all until I recently did a search on the CLI-8 Cartridges and you popped up all over Google
I work for an Inkjet Re-Filling company in the UK, I don't really want to go into details as to which company. From reading all the posts, you guys seem to have accomplished what most us in the business have been doing through common sense and trial and error, which I must admit is a much better way of training than what I was given.
I find it interesting how you all have varying techniques to fill the BCi-6's & 3's. I thought I'd share my technique that I find easiest and most successful (considering I probably fill 100+ Bci's a week)
1. We have a special cap that goes on the cart, similar to the orange one, but its re-useable. We fit that.
2. Drill a hole in the top of the ink chamber.
3. Get a 20ml syringe and fill with appropriate colour (12ml is the official but I have 15 in the syringe)
4. Hold the cart in one hand and with syringe in the other fill through the hole, at this stage only about 4-6 ml - the important thing here is watch the ink being drawn into the sponge, you will see a "tide" mark where the original ink was, try to go no further than this.
5. When the sponge has absorbed the ink up to the tide mark press your thumb down on the air hole above the sponge so that it is sealed and keep it there.
6. Fill the chamber with the remainder of the ink all the way to the top and try to get all the air out ( this is purely so you get maximum amount of ink in, no technical reason)
7. DO NOT TAKE YOUR THUMB OFF, if you do, the ink will flood in and the cartridge will leak, as a general rule, if the ink goes above the sponge the cart will leak, if this happens go to step 8, but then allow to drip over the sink until it stops.
8. I use hotmelt glue but you could use a screw or similar device to plug the hole, it must be sealed or the cart will empty in your printer!
9. Take cap off and hold upright, make sure the ink doesn't drip - an overfull cartridge can lead to contamination of other colours, and usually that colour wont print at all.
We do not flush the cartridges or clean the sponge etc, we've never had problems with air locks in the sponge and I've NEVER had a faulty 6 or 3 returned.
As a company we re-fill pretty much every cartridge out there, HP, Lexmark, Epson and of course Canon, out of all of them, Canon are the easiest to re-fill and in my experience have a 0% failure rate compares to about 5% Epson and about 30% Lex and HP.
Regarding the new Canons that take the chipped cart's, this is a big setback for us, we are a Canon re-seller (we sell their printers) and have been singing their praises, cheap to run etc, then they go and do this. We have been promised a way around the chip problem within the next few weeks, but I have a feeling its going to be more likely months! Trials have been carried out using the 6 ink on the 8's with limited success. During heavy usage there is some clogging, which could be various problems but I'll keep the forum updated on developments.
Now to the 760 part of my post!
The Canon MP760 - I got it a couple of months ago as part of my bonus
Its fantastic, very economical to run, great quality prints, some nifty features like Film Scanner and Printing on CD's and DVD's two paper trays and Duplex printing (although a lot slower than just turning the page over!)
It looks quite good and is a much better machine than my MP390 which was the Dogs Proverbial when I bought it!
I have a question to put to anyone else who has the 760 - Regarding the ink Levels, I have 4 stages on the machine:
1.full
2.half full
3.Low
4.Empty
Yet on the PC it shows as full, and the goes to low then empty. Is this common? My 390 would show on the PC all 4 stages. It's irritating as when doing a large job you cant see what the ink doing until its just about to run out!
I use the 760 for anything from photo's to Large print jobs, currently its sitting on my desk printing out 200 full colour double sided flyers with 3 small photos per side with coloured text. Average PPM (single side on standard Quality) is 3. Not great but actually faster and better quality than the QMS 2300 Colour Laser
I've just joined the forum but have been keeping an eye on threads with interest, although I must admit had forgotten about you all until I recently did a search on the CLI-8 Cartridges and you popped up all over Google
I work for an Inkjet Re-Filling company in the UK, I don't really want to go into details as to which company. From reading all the posts, you guys seem to have accomplished what most us in the business have been doing through common sense and trial and error, which I must admit is a much better way of training than what I was given.
I find it interesting how you all have varying techniques to fill the BCi-6's & 3's. I thought I'd share my technique that I find easiest and most successful (considering I probably fill 100+ Bci's a week)
1. We have a special cap that goes on the cart, similar to the orange one, but its re-useable. We fit that.
2. Drill a hole in the top of the ink chamber.
3. Get a 20ml syringe and fill with appropriate colour (12ml is the official but I have 15 in the syringe)
4. Hold the cart in one hand and with syringe in the other fill through the hole, at this stage only about 4-6 ml - the important thing here is watch the ink being drawn into the sponge, you will see a "tide" mark where the original ink was, try to go no further than this.
5. When the sponge has absorbed the ink up to the tide mark press your thumb down on the air hole above the sponge so that it is sealed and keep it there.
6. Fill the chamber with the remainder of the ink all the way to the top and try to get all the air out ( this is purely so you get maximum amount of ink in, no technical reason)
7. DO NOT TAKE YOUR THUMB OFF, if you do, the ink will flood in and the cartridge will leak, as a general rule, if the ink goes above the sponge the cart will leak, if this happens go to step 8, but then allow to drip over the sink until it stops.
8. I use hotmelt glue but you could use a screw or similar device to plug the hole, it must be sealed or the cart will empty in your printer!
9. Take cap off and hold upright, make sure the ink doesn't drip - an overfull cartridge can lead to contamination of other colours, and usually that colour wont print at all.
We do not flush the cartridges or clean the sponge etc, we've never had problems with air locks in the sponge and I've NEVER had a faulty 6 or 3 returned.
As a company we re-fill pretty much every cartridge out there, HP, Lexmark, Epson and of course Canon, out of all of them, Canon are the easiest to re-fill and in my experience have a 0% failure rate compares to about 5% Epson and about 30% Lex and HP.
Regarding the new Canons that take the chipped cart's, this is a big setback for us, we are a Canon re-seller (we sell their printers) and have been singing their praises, cheap to run etc, then they go and do this. We have been promised a way around the chip problem within the next few weeks, but I have a feeling its going to be more likely months! Trials have been carried out using the 6 ink on the 8's with limited success. During heavy usage there is some clogging, which could be various problems but I'll keep the forum updated on developments.
Now to the 760 part of my post!
The Canon MP760 - I got it a couple of months ago as part of my bonus
Its fantastic, very economical to run, great quality prints, some nifty features like Film Scanner and Printing on CD's and DVD's two paper trays and Duplex printing (although a lot slower than just turning the page over!)
It looks quite good and is a much better machine than my MP390 which was the Dogs Proverbial when I bought it!
I have a question to put to anyone else who has the 760 - Regarding the ink Levels, I have 4 stages on the machine:
1.full
2.half full
3.Low
4.Empty
Yet on the PC it shows as full, and the goes to low then empty. Is this common? My 390 would show on the PC all 4 stages. It's irritating as when doing a large job you cant see what the ink doing until its just about to run out!
I use the 760 for anything from photo's to Large print jobs, currently its sitting on my desk printing out 200 full colour double sided flyers with 3 small photos per side with coloured text. Average PPM (single side on standard Quality) is 3. Not great but actually faster and better quality than the QMS 2300 Colour Laser
