Hacking OEM Cli-8 catridges to work with CIF system

[liddington]

I've bought a CIF system for my Canon ip4500. The cartridges that come with this are spongles and, as I kind of expected for the money, rubbish. They are a bad fit in the print head and the silicon seals are not best quality so either let in air or leak ink everywhere. I've had loads of problems with this and the guy I bought it from just says I'm not installing it correctly. Anyway, to the point. The carts that came with the system don't have sponges in them, and as I mentioned are a bad fit in the holder. I'm getting missed lines everywhere and the CIS system has very nearly ended up flying out the window.

Has anyone hacked some original OEM cartridges to work with a CIS system? I'm planning on doing this as they are top quality engineered. I've had a bit of a go with pulling out the little plastic ball at the in-fill hole, which leaves a hole big enough for the inlet tube from the CIS to attach. So that bit should work. I'm assuming the air inlet hole on the cartridge will need to be sealed some how (maybe hot melt glue?) so that the ink is pulled through to the ink chamber, rather than air? Are there any draw-backs to trying this? I understand there's an on going debate about the life expectancy of the sponges, but they will be continually wet, so I guess that wouldn't be a problem. Any help would be great.

 

[websnail]

Has anyone hacked some original OEM cartridges to work with a CIS system?

Oh hell yeah..

I'm planning on doing this as they are top quality engineered. I've had a bit of a go with pulling out the little plastic ball at the in-fill hole, which leaves a hole big enough for the inlet tube from the CIS to attach. So that bit should work.

You're going to want to think about having enough clearance for the tube to bend out of the hole without crimping so it may be worth considering an elbow tube fitting.

I'm assuming the air inlet hole on the cartridge will need to be sealed some how (maybe hot melt glue?)

Yep, that'll work...

so that the ink is pulled through to the ink chamber, rather than air? Are there any draw-backs to trying this? I understand there's an on going debate about the life expectancy of the sponges, but they will be continually wet, so I guess that wouldn't be a problem. Any help would be great.

I suggest you do a search on my username and the keyword "canon" along with any number of curse words you can think of

In all seriousness, do some searching, it's not an easy process, there are some key issues to watch out for and you may end up deciding you were better off becoming a religious hermit by the time you're even halfway to where I got.

If you're curious then by all means go for it, but if you want to actually get a working system with minimal hair loss I'd recommend looking at Sam Cahir (rihac.com.au) kits and asking about those... He's got a heap more experience with this sort of thing but knows, as do I, that the Canons aren't really CIS friendly. Some units work perfectly straight off, while others will make you pay with sanity, blood and tears into a pint of beer..


Scared yet?... You should be

 

[liddington]

Thanks websnail. I've had a trawl through the forum and had a good read. Some very interesting stuff out there. Not sure if it would be any use to someone, but thought I might photograph the stages and post them up here, let's hope all goes well! Managed to get a 10 refund from the seller in the end. Should go some way to compensating for the lost hours of my life.

Another question, couldn't find anything to do with the waste tanks on canon ip4500's. I used to have an Epson r220 which I did a mod on by adding an external waste tank (and my god do you see how much it wastes). Do you know if this something that can be done on an ip4500?