Drying flushed ink carts.

[SLR_65]

My son's ip4200 had an original cartridge, magenta I believe, that kept giving problems - kept saying it had two magentas installed, then it couldn't find the magenta, on and on. I replaced it and the printer worked fine. I tried his cartridge in my printer and had the same problems. I tried resetting the chip and it seemed to reset, but once installed it was still buggy, so there are such things as bad chips and I wouldn't mess around with one, just toss the cartridge and get another.

Hmmm, I still have that cartridge - I should use it as a test cartridge to try my hand at flushing shouldn't I?

 

[martop]

pebe,

Not sure how they calculate import tax in the uk as my wife orders card making stuff from the usa, sometimes there is duty to pay, some time not. I hope when I order mine passes thruogh without !

 

[martop]

SLR_65,

The problem I had was with the cli8 black saying it was empty but was a new cart( I ust found the scrap of paper I wrote my notes on at the time )

I've tested it today without ink and it just stays lit in my ip4300, I wont take that as working though untill its reset and refilled but knowing my luck........

 

[pharmacist]

The custom officers work a bit arbitrary. Sometimes they charge, sometimes not. They do a statistical check. If "caught" I have to pay 10 euro custom fees. This is reasonable but still to be avoided.

 

[martop]

I wont mind paying about 10 euros import tax, if gordo needs every penny he can get !

My order for the redsetter arrived this morning, ordered on the 23th sunday so thats 3 working days for delivery. Am a bit concerned as the black cli8 I tested in the printer seemed to work, well it stayed lit. I refilled all the carts and reset them now the black cli8 will stay lit untill I close the cover and I get a warning that one of the carts is not recognised, I open the lid and the lights out :-(

As my spare oem carts have not arrived and wont do untill the weekend I have a few choices, simply buy a replacement or revert back to the amor cradle till I have one of the oem carts. However I am going ot buy a Canon MP520 to replace our failing lexmark all in one, I chose the 520 as its cheapish and uses the same carts as my 4300 so refilling should be easy as I have all the kit.

I just hope its a dud cli8 black and not a fault in the printer that the amor cradle hid as this fault was from day 1 but for the likes of me I can not remember how I got around it.

A note on my refilling effort, I think I dried the carts out too much as refilling made a right mess with the two blacks and yellow, I got them refilled with the German method but when the ink chamber was about half full, the sponge filled up very slowly then ink began leaking out of the outlet hole, a flothy mess landed on my desk and you know what one drop of misplaced ink can do !! I let them rest for about 20 minutes till the sponge was soaked and they stopped dripping.

It is not as easy as it looks first time around :-(

 

[martop]

Replaced the cli 8 black and all is well. printed a few full pages out and the ink that came with the redsetter seems ok. I skipped the purchase of the 520 in favour of a canon scanner, My ip4300 is networked with an edimax print server so every pc here can use it. The scanner is only used by one person here.

I took a look at the refilled carts just now and there is no leaks or any mess so am well pleased. The faulty canon cart cant be fixed I suppose ? Think it may be a dud chip, I wont waste the ink in it though as I have removed it by fitting a small silicone bung to a syringe that fitts the outlet of the cart, then I drew the nink out and back into the bottle.

This forum and the people have been very helpfull so thanks to every one who replied and to those people who over the years have made all this info available here.

martop

 

[tmierzwa]

for an oil-less compressor of a sort, use an aquarium air pump. the pressure is constant and at a low enough volumn so as not to blow out the micro holes on the printhead.

 

[ghwellsjr]

To completely dry out the sponge of a flushed cartridge, I do what someone else here on the forum suggested: I take a paper towel and fold it in half several times to make a thick piece about three inches square. Then I fold over one corner about a quarter of an inch an place this really thick piece in the outlet port of the cartridge and wrap the rest of the thick paper towel around the sides of the cartridge. Then I take a rubber band to hold everything in place, making sure the thickened part of the paper towel is in contact with the filter in the outlet port. I place it near a heater vent and in a matter of hours or overnight, the cartridge is totally dry. See pictures here.

I also use this technique to drain all the ink out of a cartridge that I want to flush, purge or recycle at Staples for $3. NOTE: now $2.