German Method - New observation, new snag. Any thoughts

[icarr757]

I posted a few days back about having occasional trouble when using the German method on the big 220Black tanks of oversaturating the sponges. Good advice was given and I than you all. Now, the new fun...

I decided to pay more attention when filling up my 220Black cartridge and I have made some new observations:

1) Cartridge is opaque except for the sides of the storage tank (duh) and a small strip along the bottom starting at the chip and ending just inside the spongy area. Qeustion: should i break down and buy some of the totally clear cartridges I have seen for sale just to make life easier?

2) I noticed when refilling, that I can see the tip of my syringe in that clear area on the bottom of the cartridge. Now, follow my landmarks here and this will make more sense. If you start at the chip on the cartridge and move in, there is a square depression, assumibly this is where the ink lvl sensor goes. Then there is a shallow rectangle with a square in the center. I believe this is the "prism" that the ink sensor looks thru. Next is a shallow elipse with a shallow circle in the near end. Now, I have found that if i position the tip of my syringe in the area of this shallow circle, 95% of the time, my refills go off with out a hitch... The exception being the 220Blacks. Last night when refilling one, places the tip of the syringe at the same point I normally do and I observed that the ink pooled at the tip and then "walked up" the syringe into the spongy area. This was a new observation. I took the syringe out, waited a few minutes, and tried again. Same result. Waited again... Long story short, I put over 5ml of Black into the cartridge, and not a drop of it went into the tank of the cartridge even though the tip of the syringe was over the tank area.

Highly annoying...

So, just curious if anyone else has noticed this and might have a thought on it.

Have a good one...

 

[gigigogu]

icarr757

Interesting observation regarding the ink going back into sponge area.

I noticed this behavior sometimes when filling BCI-6 cartridges.

To avoid this I kept the cartridge vertical, with syringe straight up, and injected more slowly.

If you are using a sharp needle, changing the bevel orientation may help.

 

[ghwellsjr]

I noticed this behavior too if my blunt needle was too close to the prism or actually touching the prism. The ink would hit the prism and capillary action carry it right back up the outside of the needle and into the sponge area. So now I make sure the end of the needle is an eighth of an inch away from the prism and I depress the plunger fast enough so that the ink squirts out and drops down into the reservoir without having a chance to bleed back up into the sponge chamber.

 

[mrelmo]

i no longer fill via the german method for several reasons one of them being a sponge area that can not be seen so it is hard to determine if it is over saturated. any way i still follow the threads on this method as it does have a place in refilling. my 2 cents (13 cents due to inflation) if the needle is in the proper depth and you have room to pull the plunger back after the needle is inserted you may pull out some of the air in the reservior and that may help the ink flow into that area, you just need to keep the air in the syring near the plunger so it does not get pushed back into the cartridge

 

[barfl2]

To overcome this problem I have previously posted an easy answer. I put a 1/4" long piece of the outer sleeve of electrical cable or you could use heatshrink. This stops you hitting the prism.