Canon Pixma ip8500 - Photo Magnetta issue

[gwrentch03]

Fotofreek and Grandad35,

Thank you for your replies and advice. I try not to let my ink go completely dry anymore. I realize the problems it could cause. I know the sensor thing is no big deal, I just like to know the inner workings of things and it bugs me that it doesnt work. I checked out the post about the ink sensor and will see if I can find it on my 8500. What that user went through is exactly what happens to mine. Grandad35, I took your advice in earlier posts and use the Formulabs ink now and figured since you use the same carts as I do and you didnt have any problems with clogging that was good enough for me.. I am going to get the accessories I need to clean my cartridges this weekend and work on them. I will post my progress. Thanks again to both of you for your help.. I am really glad I found this forum..

 

[gwrentch03]

Well I bought everything I needed at the local hardware store to clean my cartridges and it worked like a charm. I used my rainbow vacuum cleaner to pull out all the excess water from the cartridges and I must say they were very clean. I did not drill holes into my original canon cartridges, I just pushed through with a small screw driver where it said push on the cartridge, found that not to be the best way, probably should have drilled, but half way through found that if I just push through and not the entire way I was able to use the screws with o rings on it and it seeded nice but when I pushed the entire way through it would not seed as well so I did learn something there, but will probably drill any future cartridges. I did all this last week and figured this weekend I would try and re-fill the cartridges, that went well. I did notice that I would need to tap the cartridge on the top to get the ink moving if it seemed slow or not moving, after a few taps it would go into the sponge and fill fine. Even though I pushed through half of my cartridges I was able to use the screw with o-ring on all but one, when I put it back into the printer and ran a nozzle check I noticed some banding on the cyan and when I pulled the cartridge out I could see it was leaking so I sopped up the excess ink in the print head with a paper towel and then put a rubber seal in instead of the screw and re-filled it and put it back in and ran a nozzle check and it printed out great and all colors were awesome. I printed a few pictures and had my wife check to see if she could tell the difference between the canon OEM ink and the formulabs third party ink and she couldnt so that was awesome it passed the wife test.. lol. Anyway I believe I have now come full circle. I would not have been able to do this without the knowledge of this forum and its members and I thank all of you. Hopefully my trials and tribulations will help someone too. My next adventure when I get some time is to work on the ink sensor issue I am having and I will follow the link in earlier post to see if I can get the sensor clean and get it working.

 

[fotofreek]

No need to drill - I use a hot straightened paper clip to start a hole and the pan head phillips sheet metal screws (stainless steel) are self tapping. Just screw them in to size the hole and create the threads.

 

[drc023]

All the third party cartridges I've seen have a rubber or silicone plug sealing the fill hole. I can't remember if OEM Canon tanks have the same type plugs or if they are sealed over with plastic. For tanks with a sealing plug there isn't a need to make another opening. Remove the plug and use a stainless or nylon screw to seal the opening. If there isn't a suitable tap available, a stainless steel screw that is slightly larger than the fill port will cut threads when screwed into the fill port.

 

[Grandad35]

I never touch the refill plugs or the original refill hole. I have found that the stainless steel screws are not only "self-tapping", but that they are also "self-drilling" in the soft plastic top of the carts. I melted a pilot hole for the screw in my first few carts, but soon realized that my cordless drill with a Phillips screwdriver bit driving a new screw would drill the hole and drive the screw in a single step. The cordless drill is also a fast way to remove these screws if you have a number of carts to refill.

It is very easy to strip the threads with a drill once the screw is bottomed, so be sure to always make the final tightening turns by hand. If you accidentally strip the threads, just fill the hole with a "glue gun" (e.g. http://www.sciplus.com/singleItem.cfm?terms=11884&cartLogFrom=froogle) and move the screw to another area in the top of the ink chamber (the hole can be anywhere over the ink chamber).

 

[fotofreek]

DRC023 - the fill holes in Arrow and MIS carts are just the right size for the SS screws I've been using. I discarded the PITA (pain in the arse) silicone plugs as they were too difficult to handle and went to the screws. Granddad - I have a half dozen of the next size screws in my refilling kit so that I can just move up to the next size if I strip the fill hole.