Drilling hole in bottom to drain ink for waste pad full situation?

[jru]

Just wondering (may not be a good idea) if anyone has tried drilling a hole somewhere in the bottom of canon printers to allow controlled draining of any accumulated waste ink into a container when the dreaded "waste tank full" error appears. (to avoid having to disassemble printer and clean or replace waste pads).

(I don't have the message yet, but my printer is getting old).

Do you think this would work? If so, where might be best general area to try drilling such a hole?

 

[ghwellsjr]

Yes, I have tried it. You can read all about it herehttp://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=4882. The problem is that the purge pump on a Canon printer is not hefty enough to discharge any dried ink that remains in the exit tubing or its extension. And its extension cannot be very long so you can't just run the tubing over to a bladder bag for example. It can be made to work if you raise the printer up and insert the tubes into a container with water in it so that the ink cannot dry out in the tubing but I didn't feel that it was worth the hassle.

 

[jru]

ghwellsjr,

Thanks for your reply, and sharing your experience. Your pictures and explanations are so helpful. I'm sure we all appreciate how much time you put into trying to make things clear.

I'm wondering where you are now, after all you have tried, with the issue of waste pad full?
Do you just disassemble and replace pads?

For those who are not confident in disassembling, would there be any problem just re-setting the waste pad counter (without changing the pads) and making sure the printer is in a tray to catch any ink spill?

Also you have written extensively about purge unit clogging.
I read that you thought your having put lots of windex on the purge pads may have caused problems.
Would putting distilled water be better to help avoid purge unit clogging?

I have been using Hobbicolors inks (including their PGI pigment ink).
Do I recall correctly your saying you thought it might cause purge unit clogging, and if so, what source of pigment black ink would you recommend as being better? (where can they be purchased from?)

Thanks so much for your willingness to try things out, and then to report back with such clarity so that we all advance in our knowledge.

Best wishes.

 

[jru]

P.S. Any thoughts on using (Hobbicolors) dye based black (cli8-bk) in PGI-5 cart (instead of Hobbicolors pigmented ink) -- either to clean or for regular use? I think I recall someone suggesting it for cleaning clogs, and someone else saying they used it regularly.

 

[ghwellsjr]

It really takes a long time to fill the waste ink pads. The reason that I filled it so quickly is because I had problems due to using the Inktec pigment black ink in my cartridges. Let me explain since I think you are probably interested in knowing all the details:

A long time ago, I purchased thousands of empty BCI cartridges on eBay and I vacuum filled them with one liter of ink at a time. I could fill 75 dye ink cartridges and about half that number of the larger BCI-3eBk cartridges. For a long time, I was refilling cartridges that had never been refilled before and I never had any problems doing it that way. But then I decided it was time to start refilling cartridges that I had previously refilled. I had no problem with the dye ink cartridges but my first batch of pigment black ink cartridges had serious problems. About half of them were fine but the other half had serious flow problems. I would test these cartridges by first verifying a perfect nozzle check and then printing a page of black text. I would watch as the print came out and if it showed any white streaks, I would halt the printout and do a deep cleaning and repeat many times. Little did I know that the real problem was the Inktec pigment black ink which not only clogged the waste ink absorber pads but was also clogging my cartridges when left to dry out. So I believe that all these deep cleanings resulted in an earlier filling of the waste ink pads than would have happened during normal usage of the printer.

And to top it off, I was already using lots of Windex on the purge pads as an added measure against clogging and so when I got the 95% warning, I merely reset the counter and continued printing because others had suggested that you could do this about twice. A short time later, I burned out a print head that I was trying to clean, which in turn, burned out the printer and so I took it to my local Canon repair shop, at which point, I noticed a pool of black ink underneath where the printer had been.

So now I no longer recommend using Windex as a regular maintenance procedure, but only use it when you have a clog.

So now, I just use my printers in a typical normal fashion but the next time one clogs, I plan to just replace the waste ink absorber pads. Actually, I have enough spare printers that I can just swap in another one and postpone replacing the pads until I get desperate.

Yes, I would just reset the waste ink counter and place the printer on a shallow tray and continue printing. As you can see, I haven't really made up my mind what I will do.

Since my problem with clogging purge pads was caused by bad pigment ink, I don't think putting Windex on the purge pad really made a difference. If I remember correctly, my concern with putting Windex on the waste ink pad was a suggestion to remove the pad and clean it rather than flush all that thick ink down the tubes, but I doubt that doing that would really make much difference since the real culprit was bad ink. At the time I made those comments, I didn't realize what the real problem was.

I would still recommend using Windex over distilled water because it has the advantage of being able to dissolve dried ink better than water but neither one would be better in terms of avoiding an overflow of the waste ink pads. If you have ever seen the waste ink pads inside the printer, you can understand why the liquid never evaporates, there is just no airflow down there.

Yes, the Hobbicolors pigment black ink that I bought just before starting my comparison testing of the clogging problem behaved exactly like the Inktec ink did. Hobbicolors does not disclose the source of their inks so they could switch at any time to a differnent one. The best pigment black ink was OCP but it is not nearly as black as some of the others. The new Inktec ink for PGI-220Bk is significantly different from the previous versions and I am going on the assumption that Inktec has solved the problem. One of these days, I plan to redo my purge pad clogging test in a more realistic manner but in the meantime, I'm going with Inktec. I don't think you will have a problem with Image Specialist or KMP inks.

In the USA, you can purchase Inktec from their USA distributor and Image Specialist from Precision Colors in Canada.

 

[The Hat]

jru I think I recall someone suggesting it for cleaning clogs, and someone else saying they used it regularly.

I use dye black in my pigment cartridges on two of my Canon printers all the time, it never gives any problems at all.
The reason is because I am using CISS on these printers and cant use pigment ink
as it doesent work in a CISS.

There is no huge difference in both inks but the text is slightly thicker when compared to pigment ink.
It is also good as a replacement black ink when there is constant clogging problems
mainly due to lack of use with the pigment cartridge..

 

[jru]

Thanks ghwellsjr for your detailed explanation. And the Hat for your reply as well.

I have been using this ip4300 since July 2007 (coming up on 4 years), using only Hobbicolors inks, including their pigment black.
My total page count (TPAGE) to date is 9,165
and the waste pad absorber shows 29.9% (D=029.9), these values coming from the EEPROM report from service mode.
(I do keep my printer ON 24/7 to minimize cleaning cycles, as someone recommended on this forum, which may have kept the absorber percent from being even higher).

I was surprised to read of ghwellsjr's test results on different inks, showing concern that the hobbicolors pigmented ink may be causing purge pump clogging.

So I will be changing my source for pigment black ink.

To me, it seems inconvenient to have to order pigment ink separately from where I order the dye inks, so I am leaning towards getting all my inks from precision colors.

I have never removed the printhead since it was originally installed.

In these 4 years of use, I had one major pgi-5 clog (None of the pattern showed on nozzle check) which I cleared with windex without having to remove the printhead.

And just recently, I noticed that the extended nozzle check (from service mode) showed partial clogging of the pgi-5 (even though, as ghwellsjr said was possible) the simple nozzle check did not show any missing image. But I was able to clear this extended nozzle pattern partial clog just with distilled water on the screen and the park pads. So now, even my extended nozzle check is ok.

Do you think that I should try to remove the printhead to see if there is built up ink on the bottom and try to clean it up?
Or would it be better to follow "if it ain't broke, don't touch it." ?

I am somewhat hesitant to remove it, hearing of some of the problems that people have had (ex not having sufficiently dried it out before putting it back ...)

Would appreciate any thoughts you might have.

Oh, on another note, when I was looking into an alternative pigment ink source, I noticed a message on Octoinkjet website (websnail) saying that they are no longer going to be stocking one of their KMP inks:

Please note I am not currently planning on restocking this product due to the high unit cost and low demand.
If you DO wish to purchase this product please contact me.

http://www.octoink.co.uk/products/Canon-PGI%2d5BK-Compatible-KMP-Ink-%2d-Black.html

This is for their "Canon PGI-5BK Compatible KMP Ink - Black"

They also sell a "Canon Compatible KMP Universal Ink - Black"
http://www.octoink.co.uk/products/Canon-Compatible-KMP-Universal-Ink-%2d-Black.html

Which was the one you were referring to as "KMP pigment ink" that you thought was good re: the purge pump clogging issue?

Thanks!

 

[ghwellsjr]

If your nozzle check looks good and your printouts look good, I would not remove the print head.

If you are concerned about build up of ink on the bottom of the print head, you could clean the wiper blades that are used to clean it. Use a cottom swap saturated with Windex and wipe down the wiper blades until all the ink is removed. I like to squirt Windex on them too.

I have tested both of the KMP inks and the one specific to the PGI-5Bk is actually a little better in terms of how well it soaks into the absorbent pads. But I don't think either one will be a problem. This is one of the reasons I want to repeat my tests, to get more definitive results.

 

[jru]

thanks so much. I'll follow your suggestions.

And thanks the Hat: your response adds one more option to consider, i.e. Continue purchasing from Hobbicolors if Dave is willing to replace the 2 PGI-5 black bottles in his bulk ink kit with 2 CLI-8 black instead.

Have you tried the dye based inks from R-JetTek (sellers of OCP pigment), precisioncolors, and octoink? I'm assuming that they are all close in quality to hobbicolors dye based? Would be nice to be able to order both dye and pigment inks from same place...

 

[The Hat]

jru
If you are looking to get all of your inks in just one place then try:-
http://www.inkjetcarts.us/ or even try:- http://www.precisioncolors.com
They have both pigment and dye ink stocked for most printers..