Cli 580 / 280 setup cartridges adapting to XL and XXL

[shaung]

Now having a new printer TS705, and only setup cartridges I've been looking at refilling these and so far this post by Milking is most helpful as it seems that the only difference is ink volume rather than physical size.

I've briefly looked at the drip into the sponge method but that won't allow any into the ink tank itself. So I'm looking at drilling into the top and filling from there.

I hope I understand correctly that I will need to disable ink monitoring and establish a schedule for manual checking of the ink level, I think monthly will suffice unless I do a significant print run.

How does the printer know if the cartridge is Regular or XXL? is this coded into the chip as I can't imagine it weighs the cartridge?

Also any issues with ink choices? I have a stock of ink from a while back when I bought from Hobbicolors in the US which was for the old CLi 8's.

 

[mikling]

The drip in the sponge is essentially kind of futile. Eventually ink will leak out of the vent holes in due time if you fill too much and it will also start developing air pockets inside if you drip too quickly.

The printer does not know anything at all nor can it detect. The chip carries an identity. So it is up to the chip to provide to the printer the inkformation it gets. Nothing else.

Once the chip is disabled, the cartridge is a tank that holds ink and nothing else. Like you have a car that has a gas tank without a gas gauge, It drives and as long as it has gas, it keeps going. Just make sure you always have gas in the tank and you'll get to where you want to. You won't know when to fill up or how much is left. Same for the ink.

CLI-8 inks will physically work, From a color standpoint they will be horrible, They're also probably quite old as well by now.

 

[stratman]

drip into the sponge method but that won't allow any into the ink tank itself.

Where did you read/see that?

I will need to disable ink monitoring

Yes.

establish a schedule for manual checking of the ink level, I think monthly will suffice unless I do a significant print run.

This may work for you. As you alluded, it depends on your printing habits.

How do you plan to check ink volume? A digital gram scale? If there is is clear plastic or a window to visualize fills then refill when the spongeless side is empty. Forum consensus is to keep the sponge filled with ink. Sponge that is repeatedly exposed to air will develop caked on sludgey ink that may eventually impair ink flow.

Keep in mind that when you remove a cartridge from the print head you may trigger a maintenance purge as if you inserted a new cartridge. This event appears to be time controlled, eg the cartridge was out of the print head for 1 minute or longer. Exactly how long till this occurs for your printer is unknown to me and whether it happens at all. But, in printers where this has been reported to occur, it can happen even if it is the same cartridge that wasn't reset being reinserted.

So, either learn to refill very quickly, or have a second set of cartridges ready to go, or accept you will lose ink and fill your waste ink pads sooner.

How does the printer know if the cartridge is Regular or XXL? is this coded into the chip

Yes.

Also any issues with ink choices?

Some inks are a better color match to OEM inks than others. All aftermarket inks have poor fade resistance compared to OEM ink.

I have a stock of ink from a while back when I bought from Hobbicolors in the US which was for the old CLi 8's.

It's up to you whether you find colors acceptable or not. Our fearless Moderator @The Hat has reported using just about anything in his cartridges, even using a different OEM manufacturer's ink in one of his Canon printers. I don't know if he does this in a spirit of adventure or frugality, but I leave this experimenting to him.

Old ink can be fraught with potential issues such as biological contamination, flow issues from desiccation, ink flow issues from a different formulation of pigment particles, coolant properties of the liquid ink to prevent overheating and burnout of nozzles.

Generally speaking, Canon recommends using an unopened cartridge within 2 years of purchase. I have also read in a Canon Manual to use an installed cartridge by six months. I've broken both those recommendations with aftermarket inks.

To be on the safe side, if the Hobbicolrs ink has been opened or not stored properly for longer than 2 years then toss it out. Otherwise, give it a good shake to mix before refilling.

It appears your printer uses 4 Dye-based cartridges (C/Y/M/Bk) and 1 Pigment Black cartridge, Make sure you use Dye or Pigment ink in the appropriate cartridges.

Pro Tip: Don't use "Universal" inks. They are not made for any printer specifically and may cause problems discussed in this post.

 

[mikling]

There is something to consider about opening the printer lid too often, A lot depends on your cycle of useage.

Now suppose, you were purchasing OEM tanks and purchasing the regular tanks and not XL. Well if you calculate the replacement cycle, you will find that you will likely be opening the lid 4 to 5 times before the cycle comes around again.
So suppose you were consuming a tank a month or one color per month. It would be the 5th month before you needed to replace the same color again. You'd be opening the lid each month.
Now consider if you refilled and started off with an XL tank.. How often would you open the lid....remember you can top off ALL the tanks when you refill. Now here is the shocker! The XXL holds 12 ml versus the standard of 4ml, or Xl of 8ml or so. That means you will soon find out that your consumption is only 4ml. So each time you open the lid and find that you can only refill 4ml to top off, you will realize that it is too early. Even so, suppose you were not catching on, you would open the lid and never run out of ink each month and waste the same amount of inks into the waste ink pads as if you were using regular OEMs. If you had caught on and determined you could delay the refill cycle to 2 months, then you were depositing LESS than using regular OEM tanks and not refilling.
Even if you were purchasing XL tanks and disposing after use, you would actually not be that much better off either.

So essentially, if you are refilling and using dye colors often, then make sure to see if you can get some XXL sized tanks to refill for the skinny tanks.

However, the vast majority of people who use this category of machine will be using it principally for text. In this situation, the use of the pigment black PGI will likely drive the amount of times you open the lid. Here, it would be wise to obtain a XXL sized pigment black tank and refill that. Remember the setup pigment black is good according to my useage for around 300 pages of mixed and controls the refill cycle. If you bump that up to an XXL sized tank...WOW. Each time you refill the black tank, you top off the setups and they will never be that empty anyways. You're not going to be too penalized for refilling.

So if you had some smarts, you're not going to open the lid too often and each time you do so, you top off and you mitigate the aspect of having no ink levels. Not bad at all.