Canon MX882 Ink questions

[markg2]

New to Canon from long HP use--

1. Anyone have experience with the quality of Sophia Ink third party black cartridges?

2. Why 2 different Black tanks: 1 bigger than other? The printer seems to only use the bigger of the two?

3. A can't seem to find anyone that refills these tanks?

Mark

 

[stratman]

1. Anyone have experience with the quality of Sophia Ink third party black cartridges?

I have no knowledge of Sophia. However, the forum has several aftermarket inks that are highly recommended such as Image Specialists, Hobbicolors, KMP, Inktec and others.

2. Why 2 different Black tanks: 1 bigger than other? The printer seems to only use the bigger of the two?

PGI-225 (Pigment Black) - Water resistant, highlighter streak resistant ink for text.
CLI-226 (Black/Cyan/Magenta/Yellow) - water-soluble Dye-based ink for photographs or anything with color.

3. A can't seem to find anyone that refills these tanks?

The technology to reset this particular chipped cartridge is very recent, so it is no surprise that refilling businesses have not ventured into this market yet. Most people here do their own refilling with good quality aftermarket ink and reset the chips with a chip resetter. You can too, or you can buy aftermarket cartridges or new OEM Canon cartridges. Generally speaking, most aftermarket inks are not worth their cost and may lead to early print head failure from clogs, suffer poorer color or text rendition, and/or more quickly fading pictures. Be careful in what you use, especially the pigment ink.

 

[markg2]

As it stands now, it's just the Black text that we're using a lot of. For now I've ordered 2 ea OEM from Amazon. The total cost for the 2 was $29.

Is there a 3rd party whose product is reliably good and significantly less than above?

Is refilling the tanks as daunting as it sounds? If not, ~what % of OEM cost would you suspect you save in a year after amortizing the cost of the chip resetter?

Mark

 

[panos]

Is refilling the tanks as daunting as it sounds?

Does "refilling" sound daunting ?

Do you find this daunting ?

 

[stratman]

Markg2:

Panos has provided a superb link for you to see how easy refilling can be. Refilling is simple, fast and can be without mess (depending on your skills and experience). Cost of high quality refill ink will be $1.00 to $1.50 (US dollars) per cartridge - a significant savings over OEM Canon!

Pharmacist's pictorial guide to refilling is for the 220/221 model cartridges which have a transparent window that allows the ink level to be visualized. Your printer has the 225/226 model cartridges which are all opaque, therefore, there is an added step to refill for your printer. You may consider Pharmacists as the baseline for refilling - ie the German Method - but will need to do one or two more steps, either:

1) Use your 225/226 cartridges, which are totally opaque, and use a scale to weigh the cartridges in order to know how much ink, in ml's per unit weight, to add to the cartridge. You will need to know the weight of a new OEM Canon cartridge to know how much the final refill weight of the cartridge should be.

Or

2) Swap the chips from his 225/226 cartridges onto the appropriate 220/221 cartridges which have the transparent window. Now you will be able to refill per Pharmacist's complete technique without the need to weigh cartridges to gauge fill level.

Either method will require a chip resetter, appropriate inks, and syringe/bottles with appropriate needles. Having a second set of cartridges filled and ready to go when needed will make printing/refilling even more enjoyable since you won't need to stop in the middle of a print job and you can refill the second set of cartridges at your leisure.

 

[markg2]

Thanks for the link.

From whom do you purchase the ink and chip resetter?