How can I avoid overfilling the color cartridge?

[Michael]

I have a HP PSC-1507 which uses the HP 92 and 93 cartridges. I have recently started refilling the cartridges, and for the most part, it has gone pretty well. I am using color ink purchased from FullerInkJets, an e-bay supplier, and am having good printing results.

(As an aside, I also purchased pigmented black ink from FullerInkJets which did not produce good results at all. The ink bled into the paper and produced a very fuzzy copy. So I switched to another internet supplier, Printer Filling Station, and have printing results equivalent to the HP Vivera ink. I plan to switch to them for the color ink too.)

My problem is how to avoid overfilling the color cartridge. The 93 cartridge holds very little ink. The instructions I have say to use 1.0 to 1.5 cc per color. Today, the red ran out so I filled the red chamber with 1.5 cc. OK so far. Then I filled the blue and yellow chambers with approx 1.25 cc. But since these chambers still had some ink in them, I evidently overfilled them. Ink ran out the jets and muddied the print head. After I cleaned the print head up and inserted the cartridge in the printer, the cleaning cycle wiping blade sprayed ink on the inside of the cover.

The cartridge prints ok, and it doesn't appear to be still leaking. But I'd like to avoid this problem in the future. What is the best procedure for handling this problem? Should I underfill the other two chambers? Should I watch closely and continue to fill until ink starts coming out the jets, then use the syringe to remove a little ink from the cartridge?

Your experience with this will be very helpful.

Thanks,
Michael

 

[Fenrir Enterprises]

That's the problem with these new microscopic ink carts, they're more annoying to refill, and the 92/93 cannot be reset (not sure about the 21/22, which are pretty much the same thing). The black isn't /quite/ as bad, since the 5 ml goes to one color, but the color tank divided by 3 will probably need to be replaced/refilled quite often. You also have to keep a close eye on them, and make sure they don't run dry, which will happen much faster than with other cartridges. I would stick to only putting about .25 to .5 cc of ink in them every so often. It's better to underfill than to overfill.

 

[Michael]

Thanks for the advice.

If I had realized how samll the ink tanks are on the 1507, I might have bought a different machine. But I think I've got the situation licked now. I've got two good black and two good color cartridges, plenty of ink, and cartridge clips to keep the print heads from drying out.

Just one further issue. So far, I've let the ink run out before refilling, then refill immediately and put the clip on the cartridge. This works fine for the black cartridges, and seems to work fine for the color cartridges as well, except for the tendency to overfill.

What if I follow this procedure on the color cartridges, and refill the chamber of the color that has run out with 1.5 cc, and then just add 0.25 or 0.5 cc to the other two chambers? Does this sound like a good approach?

I have read about not letting the refilled cartridge go completely empty, but this is especially difficult to keep on top of. With these cartridges, I'd be refilling practically every day.

I do not understand what kind of problem letting the cartridge print until the ink is gone would cause. What is the reason for this advice, and does it apply the the HP 92/93 cartridges?

Thanks,
Michael

 

[Fenrir Enterprises]

When you let any cartridge that has the printhead built into it run dry, the ink, which was cooling the thermal printhead, isn't there, so the printhead can 'burn out'. As long as you catch it soon, this isn't too big an issue, but I've seen people comment about getting 15-20 refills if they catch it /before/ it runs out, but only about 5-10 if they do.

From what I've heard, the 92/93 cartridges actually hold /more/ ink than what they came with (several refill companies suggest 5 ml/cc per color), so your refill technique might need some practice. I'm not sure if this is true or not (if you open the cartridges, you can see on the inside that they are very tiny - there's a lot of wasted space). If it's completely empty, I'd go with 1-1.5 cc, and just try to keep the others 'topped off'.

Refilling is about the only way to make these printers worthwhile - you'd be buying $20 ink cartridges twice a week otherwise. While HPs do seem to get more prints per ml, these tanks are simply just too small.

Unfortunately, getting a multifunction printer that has both the large black /and/ color ink tanks is expensive. My reccomendation for a 'cheap' multifunction these days is to buy an Epson CX3800 and use refill tanks with it. Slow printer, but the only one in the <$150 range that has large black /and/ color ink. Canons are about $150-200 and most of the other companies are even worse than HP with their more expensive models.

 

[Michael]

Thanks for sharing the info. I really appreciate it.

On reflection, I'm not at all unhappy with the HP PSC-1507. For ordinary home office use, it makes quite acceptable copies, both black and color, prints photos that have very good color and are practically indistinguishable from photo shop prints (to the non professional eye), and it scans and copies acceptably well, even if a little slow. Now that I have the ink situation in hand, it's a pretty good little machine. Now, if I can get more than a year out of it before it breaks...

Thanks again,
Michael

 

[Fenrir Enterprises]

Both the 92/93 and 21/22 are newer types of cartridges, and while I don't think they really made that many changes to the printhead, HP's print quality tends to be quite good. The only issue I have with them is their new trick of having tiny carts in any regular printer under $120 or so, and any all-in-one under $350.